The spirit of romance; an attempt to define somewhat the charm of the pre-renaissance literature of Latin Europe

35

University of California • Berkeley

Purchased from
HORACE DAVIS BEQUEST

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THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

THE

SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

AN ATTEMPT TO DEFINE SOMEWHAT THE

CHARM OF THE PRE-RENAISSANCE

LITERATURE OF LATIN EUROPE

BY

EZRA POUND, M.A.

AUTHOR OF "PERSONS:" AND ' { EXULTATIONS :

LONDON

J. M. DENT & SONS, LTD.
29 AND 30 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.

PRAEFATIO AD LECTOREM
ELECTUM

THIS book is not a philological work. Only by
courtesy can it be said to be a study in comparative
literature.

I am interested in poetry. I have attempted to
examine certain forces, elements or qualities which
were potent in the mediaeval literature of the Latin
tongues, and are, as I believe, still potent in our own.

The history of an art is the history of masterwork,
not of failures, or of mediocrity. The omniscient historian
would display the masterpieces, their causes and their
inter-relation. The study of literature is hero-worship.
It is a refinement, or, if you will, a perversion of that
primitive religion.

I have floundered somewhat ineffectually through the
slough of philology, but I look forward to the time
when it will be possible for the lover of poetry to study
poetry — even the poetry of recondite times and places
— without burdening himself with the rags of morph-
ology, epigraphy, privatleben and the kindred delights
of the archaelogical or "scholarly" mind. I make no
plea for superficiality. But I consider it quite as
justifiable that a man should wish to study the poetry
and nothing but the poetry of a certain period, as
that he should study its antiquities, phonetics or
palaeography and be, at the end of his labours, incap-
able of discerning a refinement of style or a banality of
diction.

There are a number of sciences connected with the

vi THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

study of literature. There is in literature itself the
Art, which is not, and never will be, a science.

Art is a fluid moving above or over the minds
of men.

Having violated one canon of modern prose by this
metaphysical generality, I shall violate another. I shall
make a florid and metaphorical comparison.

Art or an art is not unlike a river. It is perturbed
at times by the quality of the river bed, but is in a way
independent of that bed. The colour of the water
depends upon the substance of the bed and banks
immediate and preceding. Stationary objects are re-
flected, but the quality of motion is of the river. The
scientist is concerned with all of these things, the
artist with that which flows.

It is dawn at Jerusalem while midnight hovers above
the Pillars of Hercules. All ages are contemporaneous.
It is B.C., let us say, in Morocco. The Middle Ages are in
Russia. The future stirs already in the minds of the
few. This is especially true of literature, where the
real time is independent of the apparent, and where
many dead men are our grand-children's contemporaries,
while many of our contemporaries have been already
gathered into Abraham's bosom, or some more fitting
receptacle.

What we need is a literary scholarship, which will
weigh Theocritus and Mr Yeats with one balance, and
which will judge dull dead men as inexorably as dull
writers of to-day, and will, with equity, give praise to
beauty before referring to an almanack.

Art is a joyous thing. Its happiness antedates even
Whistler ; apropos of which I would in all seriousness
plead for a greater levity, a more befitting levity, in our
study of the arts.

Good art never bores one. By that I mean that it

PREFACE

vn

is the business of the artist to prevent ennui ; in the
literary art, to relieve, refresh, revive the mind of the
reader — at reasonable intervals — with some form of
ecstasy, by some splendour of thought, some presentation
of sheer beauty, some lightning turn of phrase — for
laughter, especially the laughter of the mind, is no
mean form of ecstasy. Good art begins with an escape
from dulness.

The aim of the present work is to instruct. Its
ambition is to instruct painlessly.

There is no attempt at historical completeness. The
u Grundriss von Griiber " covers somewhat the same
period and falls short of completeness in divers ways.
It consists of 21,000 folio pages, and is, needless to say,
Tedescan. To this admirable work I cheerfully re-
commend anyone who has a passion for completeness.
For, omitting though it does, many of the facts con-
cerning mediaeval literature, it yet contains references
to some hundreds of other works wherein the curiosity
of the earnest may in some measure be slaked.

As to my fitness or unfitness to attempt this treatise :
Putnam tells us that, in the early regulations of the
faculty of the University of Paris, this oath is pre-
scribed for professors : u I swear to read and to finish
reading within the time set by the statutes, the books
and parts of books assigned for my lectures." l This law
I have, contrary to the custom of literary historians,
complied with. My multitudinous mistakes and in-
accuracies are at least my own.

The book treats only of such mediaeval works as
still possess an interest other than archaeological for
the contemporary reader who is not a specialist. My
criticism has consisted in selection rather than in

1 This meant from four to six books for the Doctors of Law or
Medicine. Usually one professor had one book on which to lecture.

viii THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

presentation of opinion. Certain portions of the book
are in the strictest sense original research. Through-
out the book all critical statements are based on a
direct study of the texts themselves and not upon
commentaries.

My thanks are due to Dr Wm. P. Shepard of
Hamilton College, whose refined and sympathetic
scholarship first led me to some knowledge of French,
Italian, Spanish and Provengal, and likewise to Padre
Jose Maria de Elizondo, for his kindness to me when
studying in Spain.

Some stigma will doubtless attach to Mr Ernest
Rhys, at whose instigation the present volume was
undertaken. Guilty of collusion, he is in no way
responsible for its faults.

Amplissimas ac manu quae trans crips it gratia s.

I would express also my thanks to Messrs Smith,
Elder & Co. for permission to quote from J. A.
Symonds' translation of " The Sonnets of Michael
Angolo Buonarroti."

E. P.

CONTENTS

PRAEFATIO AD LECTOREM ELECTUM

CHAPTER I.
THE PHANTOM DAWN

CHAPTER II.

IL MIGLIOR FABBRO . . . . . . . .13

CHAPTER III.

PROEN9A . . . . . . . . . -33

CHAPTER IV.
GESTE AND ROMANCE . . . . . . .61

CHAPTER V.
LA DOLCE LINGUA TOSCANA . . . . . .87

CHAPTER VI.
IL MAESTRO ......... 105

CHAPTER VII.

MONTCORBIER, ALMS VlLLON . . . . . .176

IX

x THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

CHAPTER VIII.

PAGE

THE QUALITY OF LOPE DE VEGA . . . . .191

CHAPTER IX.

CAMOENS . . . . . . . . .226

CHAPTER X.
POETI LATINI . . . ... • • • 235

THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

CHAPTER I

THE PHANTOM DAWN

THERE is, I believe, one sense in which the word
Romance has a definite meaning — that is, when it is
applied to the languages derived from the Latin, and
to the literature written in these languages. This
literature, that part of it which was produced during
the Middle Ages, is my subject.

For convenience sake, and remembering that such
points of departure are arbitrary, one might date the
Middle Ages from that year early in the sixth century
when Cassiodorus retired to the monastery at Vivaria,
taking with him the culture of an age that was over
and sealed.

Cassiodorus had seen the end of the Roman Senate,
of which he had been a member. He had held high
office under Odoacer and Theodoric, and had seen the
final victory of Belisarius.

To his taste and to Chapter XLVIII. of the " regola"
of St Benedict we may trace much of the inner culture
of the Middle Ages.

" Concerning daily manual labour: Idleness is the
enemy of the soul; hence brethren ought at certain
seasons to occupy themselves with manual labour, and
again at certain hours in holy reading. Between Easter

2 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

and the Kalends of October let them apply themselves
to reading from the fourth to the sixth hour. From the
Kalends of October to the beginning of Lent let them
apply themselves to reading until the end of the third
hour, and in these days of Lent let them receive a book
apiece from the library and read it through." — Regola,
St Benedict.

Speaking strictly, the annals of Romance Philology
begin with certain treaty oaths signed at Strasburg in
A.D. 842. Romance literature begins with a Provencal
u Alba," supposedly of the tenth century. The stanzas
of the song have been written down in Latin, but the
refrain remains in the tongue of the people.

" Dawn appeareth upon the sea,

from behind the hill,
The watch passeth, it shineth
clear amid the shadows."

But before the Romance tongues, Provengal, Italian,
Spanish, French, Portuguese, Catalan, Roumanian and
Romansch were anything more than ways of speaking
Latin somewhat more corruptly than the Roman
merchants and legionaries spoke it ; there had been in
the written Latin itself a foreboding of the spirit which
was, in great part, to be characteristic of the literature
of the Middle Ages.

This antelucanal glamour of something which is
supposed to correspond to the Gothic in architecture
is clearly perceptible in the works of Lucius Apuleius.
Apuleius was born 125 A.D. in the Roman colony of
Madaura in Numidia; he was educated at Carthage
and in Athens, and was a lecturer by profession. His
" Metamorphoses " — popularly known as " The Golden
Ass" — were written between 150 and 155 A.D. Of his
other works there survive theological philosophizings ;

THE PHANTOM DAWN

" On the Universe," " On the God of Socrates," " On
Plato and his Teachings " ; also his " Apologia," a
defence against the charge of practising black magic ;
and the "Florida," a collection of passages from his
lectures.

The " Golden Ass," written around an outline found
in Lucian, is a picaresque novel, the forerunner of the
Archipreste of Hita, Lazarillo de Tormes and the tales
of Rabelais.

Apuleius writes in a style not unlike Rabelais, a style
that would have offended Tacitus and disgusted Cicero
and Quintilian. Like Dante and Villon, he uses the
tongue of the people, for he writes in a new, strange
Latin, at a time when the language of the Roman court
was Greek. The Troubadours, Dante and Apuleius
all attempt to refine or to ornament the common speech.

In seeking to differentiate between Apuleius' style
and that of classic Latinity, Adlington, who translated
him in 1566, describes it as "such a frank and flourish-
ing a stile as he seemed to have the muses at his will
to feed and maintain his pen " : " so darke and high a stile,
in so strange and absurd words and in such new invented
phrases as he seemed rather to set it forth to shew his
magnificincie of prose than to participate his doings to
other." In short, he "parleys Euphues."

I have used the term " classic " in connection with
Latinity : in the course of this book I shall perhaps be
tempted to use the word " romantic " ; both terms are
snares, and one must not be confused by them. The
history of literary criticism is the history of a vain
struggle to find a terminology which will define some-
thing. The triumph of literary criticism is that certain
of its terms — chiefly those defined by Aristotle — still
retain some shreds of meaning.

4 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

Certain qualities and certain furnishings are germane
to all fine poetry ; there is no need to call them either
classic or romantic. It makes little difference whether
Ulysses dally with Calypso, or Ywain be graciously
entreated by Morgana. Philomel is ubiquitous.

The perverted asceticism which is called " classic "
in drama like Racine's, or verse like Pope's, never
existed in the Greek. The following fragment of
Sophocles has all the paraphernalia of the " Romantic "
school, and something besides. " Oidipous epi Kolonoi."
Jebb's translation.

" Stranger, in this land of goodly steeds, thou hast
come to earth's fairest home, even to our white Colonus ;
where the nightingale, a constant guest, trills her clear
note in the covert of green glades, dwelling amid the
wine-dark ivy and the Gods' inviolate bowers, rich in
berries and fruit, unvisited by sun, unvexed by wind of
any storm, where the reveller Dionysus ever walks
the ground, companion of the nymphs that nursed
him.

" And, fed by heavenly dew, the narcissus blooms morn
by morn with fair clusters, crown of the great goddesses
from of yore ; and the crocus blooms with golden beam.
Nor fail the sleepless founts, whence the waters of
Cephisus wander, but each day with stainless tide he
moveth over the plains of the land's swelling bosom, for
the giving of quick increase ; nor hath the Muses' quire
abhorred this place, nor Aphrodite of the golden rain."

Neither are witches and magical fountains the peculiar
hall-mark of the " romantic " : the following lines from
Ovid are as haunted as anything in Ossian.

" Stat vetus et multos incadua silva per annos.
Credibile est illi numen inesse luco.
Tons sacer in medlo speluncaque pumice pendens,
Et latere ex omni dulce querunter aves"

THE PHANTOM DAWN

" Ancient the wood stands

unhewn for many a season.
It seems some presence dwells

within the grove.
A sacred fount is there

o'erhung with glittering stones,
And from all sides there sounds

birds sweet complaining."

The difference is neither of matter nor of para-
phernalia. Seeking a distinction in the style, we are
nearer to sanity, yet even here we might do well to
borrow an uncorrupted terminology from architecture.
Such terms as Doric, Romanesque and Gothic would
convey a definite meaning, and would, when applied to
style, be difficult of misinterpretation. When Eng-
land had a u romantic school" it was said to join
" strangeness " with " beauty " ; this also admits a
quibble.

Poetry is a sort of inspired mathematics, which gives
us equations, not for abstract figures, triangles, spheres,
and the like, but equations for the human emotions. If
one have a mind which inclines to magic rather than to
science, one will prefer to speak of these equations as
spells or incantations ; it sounds more arcane, mysterious,
recondite. Speaking generally, the spells or equations
of " classic " art invoke the beauty of the normal, and
spells of " romantic " art are said to invoke the beauty
of the unusual. However, any classification of works
of art is unsatisfactory. I fear the pigeon-hole, though
it bring apparent convenience.

I am inclined to doubt Mackail's opinion that this
ornate style of the later Empire is related to the
" Gothic" quality of mediaeval literature, and to consider
Apuleius' floridity a purely oriental quality, analogous
to the Byzantine in architecture. This would ultimately
bring us to the question of the correspondences of

6 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

Indian to Gothic art, and we were so the more entoiled.
The " Golden Ass " is our objective fact.

To find out how these metamorphoses of Apuleius
differ from preceding Latin, we may compare them
with the metamorphoses of Ovid. Both men write
of wonders, and transformations, and of things
supernatural.

Ovid, urbane, sceptical, a Roman of the city, writes,
not in a florid prose, but in a polished verse, with the
clarity of French scientific prose.

" Convenit esse deos et ergo esse creaemus"

"It is convenient to have Gods, and therefore we
believe they exist/' says the sophisticated Naso; and
with all pretence of scientific accuracy he ushers in
his gods, demigods, monsters and transformations. His
mind, trained to the system of empire, demands the
definite. The sceptical age hungers after the definite,
after something it can pretend to believe. The
marvellous thing is made plausible, the gods are
humanized, their annals are written as if copied from
a parish register ; the heroes might have been
acquaintances of the author's father.

Thus : in Crete, in the reign of Minos, to take a
definite instance, Daedalus is constructing the first
monoplane, and " the boy Icarus laughing, snatches at
the feathers which are fluttering in the stray breeze,
pokes soft the yellow wax with his thumb, and with
his play hinders the wonderful work of his father."

A few lines further on Ovid writes in witness of
Daedalus' skill as a mechanic, that it was he who,
observing the backbone of a fish, invented the first
saw : it might be the incident of Newton and the apple.
On the whole there is nothing that need excite our
incredulity. The inventor of the saw invents an

THE PHANTOM DAWN

aeroplane. There is an accident to his son, who dis-
regards his father's flying instructions, and a final jeer
from an old rival, Perdix, who has simplified the
processes of aviation by getting metamorphosed into
a bird. It is told so simply, one hardly remembers to
be surprised that Perdix should have become a partridge ;
or at most one feels that the accurate P. O. Naso has
made some slight error in quoting well-established
authority, and that we have no strict warrant for
assuming that this particular partridge was Daedalus'
cousin Perdix.

Turning to Apuleius' tale of Cupid and Psyche, we
become conscious of a different atmosphere. This
particular tale is put in the mouth of a most suspicious
old beldame ; it is told in a robber's cave to a maiden
captive, snatched from the arms of an expectant
bridegroom. We are in the era of u once upon a time " ;
on the sea-coast of Bohemia. The indefiniteness is
very like that of the later writers, who speak of " the
Duke Joshua" and "that good Knight Alexander of
Macedon," and refer to the Talmud as if it were a man ;
thus, u Master Talmud says."

The mood, the play is everything; the facts are
nothing. Ovid, before Browning, raises the dead and
dissects their mental processes ; he walks with the
people of myth ; Apuleius, in real life, is confused with
his fictitious hero. He keeps up the farce of truth-telling
by putting his exaggerated and outrageous tales in the
mouths of strangers, who repeat what they have heard
from chance acquaintances. The whole book purports
to be of the adventures of a certain young traveller.
The " Cupid and Psyche " is the best and longest of the
interpolated tales. Thus the old beldame begins :

" There dwelt in a certain city a King and Queen

8 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

who had three very beautiful daughters ; but although
the two elder were very beautiful indeed, it was yet
thought possible to tell about them with human praises.
But to tell the truth, the youngest was so very especially
and exquisitely beautiful that her beauty simply could
not be expressed or sufficiently praised with the penury
of mortal speech."

From which passage it is impossible not to know
what kind of story it is going to be. The one hope is
that the things " which never were on sea or land "
will be more weird and marvellous than any others you
have ever heard of: you read, as a child who has
listened to ghost stories goes into a dark room ; it is no
accurate information about historical things that you
seek, it is the thrill ; mere reality would never satisfy.

Ah, no ! We have already read of a marvellous city
in St John's "Revelation"; our taste has become
Christianized ; our heroine must move through wonder-
ful places : thus Pater's version :

" And lo ! a grove of mighty trees, with a fount of
water, clear as glass, in the midst ; and hard by the
water, a dwelling-place, built not by human hands, but
by some divine cunning. One recognized, even at the
entering, the delightful hostelry of a God. Golden
pillars sustained the roof, arched most curiously in cedar
wood and ivory. The walls were hidden under
wrought silver : all tame and woodland creatures leap-
ing forward to the visitor's gaze. Wonderful indeed
was the craftsman, divine or half divine, who by the
subtlety of his art had breathed so wild a soul into the
silver ! The very pavement was distinct with pictures
in goodly stones. In the glow of its precious metal the
house is its own daylight, having no need of the sun.
Well might it seem a place fashioned for the conversa-
tion of gods with men ! "

THE PHANTOM DAWN

Then come voices in the air; voices " unclothed of
bodily vesture " ; the harping of invisible harpers,
singing; the musicians invisible, subject to her will;
and, most wonderful of all, the invisible Eros, and the
wind Zephyrus, who does her bidding.

Later, she is cast out of her paradise for dis-
obedience, and wanders across the earth, and down into
the deep of hell.

Both themes are popular in the Middle Ages. The
probable allegory of the tale, with a reversal of sex, is
the same as that in the tales of Twain and Ossian,
although these are usually connected with a Diana
myth. The invisible harpers and voices in the air may
have suggested Ariel and his kindred sprites in " The
Tempest," as Adlington's translation was undoubtedly
known to Shakespeare.

It is, however, to the style that we must look for
our distinction between the Latin of Apuleius and the
classic Latin. Restraint, which drives the master toward
intensity and the tyro toward aridity, has been
abandoned. The charm of neatness has lost its power ;
the barbaric and the Gothic mind alike delight in
profusion. If Europe, as has been said, ends at the
Pyrenees, the similarity of Apuleius' style to the later
Spanish " culturismo " offers opportunity to some literary
theorician for investigating the Carthagenian element
in literature. Enough here to point out that there was
in Latin an " unclassical" style, from which certain
qualities in " romance " literature may be derived.

That the hero of Apuleius' book dies in the odour of
sanctity would make him only the more acceptable to
the Middle Ages. The last part of the " Golden Ass,"
which is a huge parody of the mystic rites, would not
have offended the patrons of the feast of fools ; although
certain more serious Christians did denounce the author

io THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

as Anti-Christ. Still it was not from Apuleius, but
from Ovid, that the mediaeval tale-tellers took so much
of their ornament and inspiration ; and Apuleius is
further removed from the earlier writer of metamor-
phoses than are Crestien de Troyes or Guillaume de
Lorris.

About the time when Apuleius was writing his
scurrilous, bejewelled prose, there was composed a
poem of some eighty odd lines,1 which is interesting for
several reasons. It celebrates a Greek feast, which
had been transplanted into Italy, and recently revived
by Hadrian ; the feast of Venus Genetrix, which survives
as May Day. The metric is noteworthy, because in it
are seen certain tendencies indigenous to the Italian
peninsula, which had been long suppressed by the
imitation of Greek scansion. The measure is trochaic

" Cras amet qui nunguam amavit
Quique amavit eras amef."

" Let whoever never loved, love to-morrow,
Let whoever has loved, love to-morrow."

" A new spring, a spring already full of song,
Spring is reborn throughout the world.

In spring are loves in harmony, in spring the winged ones mate,
And the grove unbinds her locks unto the mated rains.
To-morrow beneath the leafage of the trees the binder of loves

will weave green lodges out of myrtle boughs,
To-morrow Dione from her lofty throne gives forth this high
decree,

Let whoever never loved, love to-morrow,
Let whoever has loved, love to-morrow.

Then from the godly blood and the foamy drops of the ocean,

Amid the two-footed steed and the cohorts cerulean,

Came forth the wave-born Dione from beneath the mated rains.

1 The " Pervigilium Veneris." I discount lines 69-74 as the
spurious marginalia of some copyist.

THE PHANTOM DAWN n

Let whoever never loved, love to-morrow,
Let whoever has loved, love to-morrow.

She paints the purpling year with the jewels of the flowers,

She stroketh the flower-bosoms with the west wind's breath,

It is she who scatters the damp of the gleaming dew, which the

night wind leaves behind him,
Its trembling tears gleam and are ready to fall.
The hanging, tremulous drops restrained in their falling
Make fairer the blushing shame of the flowers.
Yea, that dew which the stars rain down on cloudless nights
Will unbind thepeplum, the scarf, from their dewy breasts at the dawn :
The goddess bids the rose-maids wed at morn,
Made from Love's kisses and from Cypris' blood,
And out of gems, and flames, and the purple of the sun,
That glow which hides within the saffron sheath
Shall dare at morn unbind the single fold.

Let whoever never loved, love to-morrow,
Let whoever has loved, love to-morrow."

" Divine, she bids the nymphs seek out the myrtle grove."

Then the nymphs pray to Diana, or Delia, thus : —

" There is one thing which we pray thee, grant us, O Virgin Diana,

That the grove be undefiled with the slaughter of wild things.

Yea, She bids us ask thee if thy strictness might waver,

She wills that thou deign to come — an thou deemst it maid-
befitting —

Where thou mightest see the galliard chorus, for three full nights
a-singing, mid the herbs and a-wandering through thy glades,

Through the flowery crowns of the fields, mid the lodges of myrtle ;

And Bacchus, and Ceres, and Phcebus will be among them ;

And the whole night long will be watched through with constant
song."

" Dione reigns in the woodland,
Give place, O Delian Maid.

Let whoever never loved, love to-morrow,
Let whoever has loved, love to-morrow.

12 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

Divine, she biddeth her throne to be decked with the flowers of

Hyblis,

She rules and gives the commands and the graces come to her calling,
And the flowers, yea all that the year brings unto Hybla
And more than the vales of Hybla and the fields of Enna yield.
Lo, there come wandering with them, the maidens of field and

of forest,

Such as dwell in the hills, and the fountains and the groves.
And here ye may see all the herds and the flocks amid the broom

plants ;

She, the divine one, bideth the songful wings to break silence,
The hoarse swan clamour drifts across the pools.
Hark ! mid the poplar shade there, the Tyrrean maiden
Cryeth with musical mouth, so that love rather seemeth
The cause of her song, than that sorrow
She gat from the sister ill-wedded.
Yea, hers, hers is the song, and the silence is ours !
Ah, when shall mine own spring come ?
Ah, when, as a lyre long silent, shall my silence find its end ? "

(As echo) —

" Cras amet qui nunquam amavit
Quique amavit eras amet"

Mackail deftly transfers the final question, and replies
that song did not again awake until the Provencal viol
sounded the dawn's approaching.

CHAPTER II

IL MIGLIOR FABBRO

THE twelfth century, or, more exactly, that century
whose centre is the year 1200, has left us two perfect
gifts : the church of San Zeno at Verona, and the
canzoni of Arnaut Daniel ; by which I would imply
all that is most excellent in the Italian-Romanesque
architecture and in Proven$al minstrelsy.

While the highest minds of the age were passing
systematic legislation for the most orderly angels, and
reconstructing the laws of God with a fascinating precise-
ness, the architects, illumined, one supposes, by some
glimmer of the esoteric doctrine, were applying the
Greek laws of proportion to buildings meet for the new
religion, and the Troubadours were melting the common
tongue and fashioning it into new harmonies depending
not upon the alternation of quantities but upon rhyme
and accent.

Some temperamental sympathy may prejudice me in
favour of this age. I lay no claim to a dispassionate
judgment. The keenly intellectual mysticism of Richard
of St Victor fascinates me, the Romanesque architecture,
being the natural evolution from the classic, seems more
admirable than the artificially classic modes of the
Renaissance. In the forms of Arnaut Daniel's canzoni
I find a corresponding excellence, seeing that they satisfy
not only the modern ear, gluttonous of rhyme, but also
the ear trained to Roman and Hellenic music, to which
rhyme seemed and seems a vulgarity.

14 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

To rate Daniel among the masters is no new thing,
as one may learn from Dante both in verse and prose.

The opinion has been out of fashion for some five
hundred years ; this is chiefly, I trust in charity to the
critics, because poets have riot been able to read his
language, and because the scholars have not known
anything about poetry.1 Now Dante's poetry so over-
shadows his work in prose that we are apt to forget
that he is numbered with Aristotle and Longinus among
the great literary critics of past time.

Dante praises Daniel with a subtle adequacy both in
the "De Vulgari Eloquentia" and in the "Commedia"
itself, where he sets the laudation in the mouth of his
greatest Italian predecessor, Guido Guinicelli of Bologna,
u il saggio."

The passage, " Purg." 26, runs thus : Dante having
spoken of Guinicelli as u father of me and of others my
betters who ever use sweet and delicate rimes of love,"
says to him : " Your lovely songs as long as modern
use shall last, will make their very ink precious " : and
Guido replies, pointing out a spirit before him : " This
one whom I point out with my finger was the better
craftsman in the mother tongue. He surpassed all
verses of love and proses of romances : let the fools talk
who believe that that fellow from Limoges (Giraut of
Bornelh) excels him. To rumour rather than truth
they turn their faces, and thus fix their opinion before
paying attention to art or reason. So did many of our
fathers with Guittone, with clamour on clamour,
ascribing worth to him alone, until the truth conquered
with most folk."

This device of praising Daniel by the mouth of

1 From this general condemnation I would except Dr W. P. Ker.
I do not, however, agree with his essay, " Dante, Guido Guinicelli
and Arnaut Daniel " (Mod. Lang. Rev., Jan. 1909).

IL MIGLIOR FABBRO 15

Guinicelli is comparable to that which Dante uses in the
u Paradise," honouring St Dominic and St Francis in the
speech of a Franciscan and a Dominican respectively.

In Dante's " Treatise on the Common Speech," Daniel
is taken as the type of the writers on love (ii. 2). In
ii. 6, his u Sols sui qui sai lo sobrafan quern sortz," is
cited among the u illustrious canzoni," to be taken as
patterns of " this degree of construction which we call
the most excellent." Dante mentions him again in ii.
13, "on un-rimed stanzas," and in ii. 10 on the setting
of "stanzas" to "odes," writing as follows: "This
kind of stanza is used by Arnaut Daniel in almost all his
canzoni, and we have followed him in ours, beginning,

' Alpoco giorno ed al grand cerclo (fombraj

6 (To little day and the great circle of shadow).' "

It is true that Bornelh also is mentioned four times
in this treatise ; but the first reference is merely on a
point of philology, and in the second Bornelh is taken
as the type of the singers of righteousness, or u direc-
tion of the will " ; where of a surety the competition
was not so keen ; while Daniel is taken as the type of
the singers of love, no slight matter if we consider it
in connection with Dante's speech, u Purg." xxiv., where
Bonagiunta recognizes him as the author of " Donne
ch' avete intelletto d' amore," and Dante says of his own
work, UI am one who when love inspires me, take note,
and I go signifying after what manner he speaks within " ;
whereto the poet of Lucca replies, " O brother, now I
see the knot which held back the notary (Jacopo da
Lentino), and Guittone (d'Arezzo) and me, keeping us
on this side of the sweet new style which I hear : I see
well how your pens press close behind the dictator,
which of a surety befell not to ours. And he who sets

16 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

himself to search further has not the sense to see the
difference between the styles."

In the " Treatise on the Common Speech," Bornelh
is further cited (ii. 5) on the hendecasyllabic lines, and,
ii. 6, "on construction" at the head of the list; yet,
even if Daniel were unmentioned in this treatise, the
passage from the " Purgatorio," which I have quoted,
would leave us no doubt of Dante's relative respect for
him, while the subtlest compliment of all, is that paid
at the end of the canto ("Purg." xxvi.), where Arnaut
Daniel speaks, not in Italian, but in his own tongue ;
an honour paid to no one else in the " Commedia." The
first line of this speech,

" Tan m* abelis vostre cortes deman "
is reminiscent perhaps of Folquet of Marseilles,

" Tan m* abelis Famoros pensamens"
or Sordello's

" Tan m* abelis lo terminis novels"

The whole passage reads as follows : —

"So pleasureth me your courteous demand
That I nor can nor would conceal it you.
Arnaut am I, who weep and go a-singing.
In thought I see my folly of old days,
Yet see, rejoicing, the day which is before me,
For which I hope ; and now do I pray you in that power's name,
Which guideth you unto the summit of the stair,
Be mindful in good time of this my grief."

That Daniel did not immediately go out of fashion
we may know from Petrarch's praise of him, as " gran
maestro d' amor" (which we may render perhaps
" great master of chivalric love-lore") ; " who still doth

IL MIGLIOR FABBRO 17

honour to his native land by his fair, fine-wrought
speech."

Whether Dante and Petrarch showed a certain not
altogether despicable intelligence in this matter, and
whether the modern writers on the subject are to be
numbered, ut credo, among " gli stolti che quel di
lemosi credon ch' avanzi," I leave you to judge.

Now the sum of the charges against Daniel, whom
everyone admits to have a finer technique than any
other Troubadour, seems to be that he is difficult to
read; and a careful examination of the texts shows
that this is not due either to obscurities of style, or
to such as are caused by the constraints of complicated
form, and the exigency of scarce rimes, but is due
simply to his refusal to use the "journalese " of his day,
and to his aversion to the obvious, familiar vocabulary.
He is never content with a conventional phrase, or with
a word which does not convey his exact meaning ; for
which reason his words are often hard to translate,
more especially as there is no complete or satisfactory
Provencal-English, or Proventjal-anything, lexicon yet
printed.

It is true that Daniel's diction and metaphor are
occasionally so vivid as to seem harsh in literal transla-
tion, but so are Dante's own: as, for example, aPurg."
i. 42, where he speaks of Gate's " oneste piume," which
" honest plumes " must be rendered " feathery beard,"
if one is to avoid the ridiculous. Such substitutions
must be made in nearly all translations ; and very often
a Romance or Latin word stands between two English
words, or includes them: thus in the Pervigilium
Veneris, " nemus resolvit comam" can scarcely be
translated "the grove unbinds its hair"; yet the Latin
phrase is more picturesque than "puts forth its foliage " ;
as the word coma is used for hair, foliage, standing corn

1 8 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

or grass, indifferently : — thus in Gaelic " RUN " means
"mystery" or uthe beloved," and has by this associa-
tion a poetic meaning quite untranslatable.

However, Daniel's own poetry is more likely to
claim interest than a record of opinions. His canzone,
which Dante cites among the models of most excellent
construction, opens:

" Sols sul qul sal lo sobra^an quern rortz
Al cor d" amor sofren per sobramar,
Car mos vokrs es tantferms et entlers
C'anc no s'esduls de cellelel nl s'estors
Cut encubric al prim vezer e puois,
Qii ades ses lieu die a lieis cocbos motz
Pols quan la vel non sal tant fal que dire."

" Only I know what over-anguish falls
Upon the love worn heart through over-love.
Because of my desire so firm and whole
Toward her I loved on sight and since alway,
Which turneth not aside nor wavereth.
So, far from her I speak for her mad speech,
Who near her, for o'er much to speak, am dumb."

The rimes a, b, c, d, e, f, g, are repeated in the same
order six times, with a coda, e, f, g, and the original is
perhaps the most musical arrangement of words in
sequence, whereof we know. Like all fine poetry it can
be well judged only when heard spoken1 ; this is true also
of the Sestina form invented by Arnaut Daniel, later
introduced into Italy by Dante, and into Spain, I
believe, by Fernando de Herrera (el Divino), a form
like a thin sheet of flame folding and infolding upon
itself.

The first four stanzas and the envoi of the Canzone,
begun above, run as follows : —

1 Or sung to its own measure.

IL MIGLIOR FABBRO 19

I am the only one who knows the over-anguish which
falls to my lot, to the heart of love suffering through
over-love; for my desire is so firm and whole, never
turning away or twisting from her, whom I desired
at first sight and since, so that now without her I
say to her hot words, since when I see her I do not
know, having so much, what to say.

ii

I am blind for seeing others, deaf for hearing them,
for in her alone do I see and hear and marvel : I am no
light, false speaker about this, for the heart willeth her
more than the mouth saith ; for I could not travel roads,
vales, plains, and hills enough to find in one sole body so
many good gifts as God wills to test and set in her.

in

Sooth, have I stood at many a goodly court; but
with her alone do I find worth beyond praising, measure,
and sense, and other good matters : beauty, youth,
kind deeds and gracious ways. Nobly hath Courtesy
taught her and led her forth, so that she is broken off
from all things displeasing. I think no thing of good
could turn from her.

IV

No pleasure would be for me brief or short, from
her whom I pray that which I hope she please to divine,
for never through me shall she know it openly, unless the
heart shall speak out his hiddenness : for the Rhone, from
the water that swelleth it, hath never such turmoil as
doth that torrent which pools itself with love in my
heart, on seeing her.

20 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

VII

" I pray that my song weary you not,
For if you wish to grace the sound and the words
Arnaut cares little whom it please or whom offend."

In the fourth stanza the comparison of the heart to
the Rhone overflowing with the spring freshets is
Dantescan in its vivid and accurate description of the
emotion, and in its taking a particular river for com-
parison ; Dante does not say, " where a river pools
itself " ; but, " Dove 1' Adige stagna " (where the
Adige pools itself).

One can form no accurate estimate of Daniel's
technical skill in rimes, and more especially in onomato-
poeia— making the sound follow the sense or word —
except from a study of the Provencal ; but his vividness
and his delicacy may be understood, I think, from the
passages which follow : —

First, the canzon which Dante praises in the
"D. V. E.,"ii. 2.

" V aura amara
Fals bruollh brancutz
Clarzlr

Quel doutz espeissa abjuoills,
Els letz
Bees

Dels auzels ramencs
Ten balps e mutz,
Pars

E non pars ;
Per qtf eu m esfortz
Defar e dir
Plazers

A mams per liei
Que m*a virat has d'aut,
Don tern morir
Si/s afans no m'asoma."

IL MIGLIOR FABBRO 21

This verse form, with a sound that echoes the angry
chatter of the birds in autumn, is repeated six times
with exact repetition of the rimes.

" The bitter air strips clear the feathery boughs,
Which softer winds had covered thick with leaves,
And holdeth dumb and stuttering the birds' glad mouths
Amid the boughs, mates and unmated all."

Wherefore I struggle to speak and to do more often
such things as please her who hath cast me down from
on high, of whom I fear to die unless she ease my
pain.

ii

So clear was- my first light in choosing her whose
eyes my heart feareth that I praise not the secret
delights of another, nor gifts, nor prayers. Nay, my
prayer draws itself far away from any other, but my
delight is to attend closely to her will, to her good
words that never weary one; hers who so delightethme
that I am all for serving her, from my feet to my hair.

in

" Beware, love,
Consider, if I be truly welcome ? "

For if I am unwelcome, I fear to make heard words
so mad that it were better you cut short my speech ;
for I am a faithful lover, dear, without variance, though
many a time you rigorously make me hide my heart,
yet with all the snow (in the world) I shou[d have need
of a kiss to cool my hot heart, which no other balm
availeth.

22 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

IV

If she will but reach out her hand to me in favour,
she who hath easily set her power upon me — she
who is, as it were, the citadel of worth — out of the
silent prayers which I have arrayed within me, will my
clear thought be rendered up intact ; for I would be
dead did she not make me to suffer hope, wherefore I
pray her that she cut short my (time of) hoping, and
in this wise retain me gay and joyous, for the joy of
rejoicing in anything else I count not worth an apple.

Sweet one ! Dear one !

Thou who art the desire of every grace (i.e. each of
the pure essence wishes her to be its symbol, its means
of manifestation), for many a proud, mad deed shall I
suffer on your account, for you are the province of all
my madness, whereof there is clamour in many a place,
but jests (scandal) will not make me turn from you,
nor will possessions make me depart. Never have I
loved anything so much and with less boasting, and
I desire you more than doth God fyer of Doma [i.e.
our Lady of Pui de Dome].

VI

(Envoi to the Jongleur.)

Now make ready the song and its accompaniment
so as to present it to the king, who shall be its target,
for reward (of worth) which is blind here, is doubled
there, and the customs of largesse and banqueting are
kept up. With joy repair thou thither, for if he would
award me his ring, never a day would I stay from
Aragon, but I should wish to go there galloping — only
they have begged me to remain here.

IL MIGLIOR FABBRO 23

VII

Made is the pact that in my heart I will every even-
ing look again upon her to whom I, Arnaut, render
lady service, in which she hath neither sharer nor
rival, for I am clean done with troubling my head about
any other.

In this song, which the greatest of poets has praised,
even though it is stripped bare as a winter branch of
all beauties of form and of word melody by its trans-
position into another tongue, one can still follow the
shadowy suggestion of mediaeval ceremonies, due to
Daniel's choice of verbs ; and the symmetrical arrange-
ment of stanzas.1

In Stanza I. he speaks of the season ; in most Pro-
ven$al poetry one finds nature in its proper place, i.e.
as a background to the action, an interpretation of the
mood; an equation, in other terms, or a "metaphor
by sympathy " for the mood of the poem. In half
Arnaut 's songs, and I should think in half the Pro-

1 The excellence of the construction of the foregoing canzo may,
I think, be understood by anyone who will sing the given stanza
aloud. Lefc, bees, mute, are, it is true, "shaggy" rime words ; but
if the ear is to carry seventeen rimes at once, some of them must be
acute sounds. Dr Ker's objection that the harmony of this song is
not obtained by the rules of thumb which Dante prescribes for
obtaining harmony in another language, does not seem to me valid.

In " Purg." 26 Dante's proven9al lines which do not rime with
other lines in Italian, contain only ten syllables. And the single
line —

" Aifah ris ! per qua tralz, avetz "

with which he begins the " desacoart," usually styled " Canzone
XXL," should show that either * t's and ' z's had in proven9al a
different sound from that which is usually imagined, or that Dante
believed certain things to be fitting in the lingua materna which were
not laudable in lingua Toscana.

24 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

verbal canzoni, the first verse sets the stage, and
determines the tone of the poem directly or by
inversion.

In Stanza II. he speaks of the lady.

Stanza III. is a direct appeal to her.

Stanza IV. is spoken as if she were to overhear it.

Stanza V. is again a direct appeal.

Stanza VI. is the conventional address to the
Jongleur.

The addresses to the Jongleur, later to be replaced
by Tornate or Envois addressed to the song itself, form
no part of the poem proper, and concern only the
people of the time, for which reason, coupled with our
ignorance of the personal circumstances to which they
refer, they are, not only in Daniel but in the other
Troubadours, very often unintelligible.

The boldness of the comparison at the end of Stanza
V. is such that no translation can diminish it. Its
arrogance may well have delighted him who summoned
the rulers of the third heaven to attend his song.

" Vol che II intendendo II terzo del movete"

DANTE, // Convito, ii.

The second canzoni to which Dante refers is that
most musical u Sols sui qui sai lo sobrafan quern
sortz," which is given above, and four stanzas of the
third,

"Simfos amors dejoi donar tant larga
Cum leu vas lieu d? aver fin cor e franc"

are as follows :

Had love such largesse giving joy to me, as I, in having
for her a fine and open heart, never, for the great good
which I seek, would he trouble to set me hindrance,

IL MIGLIOR FABBRO 25

for now have I set my love in such a high place that
the thought (of it) exalts and abaseth me. But when
I consider how she is the summit of worth, much
do I love myself the more for having ever dared to
desire her, for now do I know that my heart and my wit
will make me to make to their whim a rich conquest.

ii

Therefore a long delay will not put me off, for I
have set myself toward so rich a place, and " pooled "
myself about it ; that with her sweet words alone she
would hold me bounded with joy, and I would follow
her until they carry me to the tomb, for I am never
one that leaves gold for lead ; and since in her there
is nothing that one could refine, so will I be true and
obedient to her until out of her love, if it please her,
she " invest " me with a kiss.

in

A good delay brings back and frees me from a sweet
desire whereof my body grieveth me, and in calmness
I bear the anguish and suffering and neglect and penury,
since, as regards beauty, the other women are " in the
valley " ; for the noblest, whoever she may be, appears
as if she had fallen, if she come to be compared with
her (my Lady) : and this is true, for every good charm,
worth, wisdom and wit reign in her in such wise that
there is not one that is there in scant quantity, nor
which doth not abide (in her) constantly.

IV

And since she is of such worth, do not think that
my firm will can disperse itself or flow away or divide,
for by that God who manifested himself in the dove,

26 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

I am neither mine (i.e. sane) nor hers if I leave her.
For the world has in it no man of whatever name so
desirous to have great prosperity as I have to be made
hers, and I care not a bean for the bores to whom the
harm of love is a " fiesta."

The second stanza is of the major importance, and
those who are trying to trace the sources of Dante's
style will do well to consider how much the Tuscan
master owes to Daniel's terse vigour of suggestion.
Three times in this stanza the Provengal makes his
picture, neither by simile nor by metaphor, but in the
language beyond metaphor ; by the use of the pictur-
esque verb with an exact meaning. Firstly, " pools
himself" — the natural picture. Secondly, after the
comparison of gold and lead, the metal worker's shop
gives tribute, and is present to the vision in the
technical word "refine." Thirdly, the feudal ceremony
and the suggestion of its pageantry are in the verb
" invest."

It was not in a fit of senseless enthusiasm, nor yet
because of lost narrative poems of uncertain existence,
that Dante praised u il miglior fabbro" but for "maestria."

Perhaps the most beautiful of all the surviving poems
of " the better craftsman" is the Xllth (according to
Cannello's numbering) ; at least it seems to lose less
of its glamour in translation.

" Doutz brais e critz" (5 stanzas)

Sweet clamour, cries, and lays and songs and vows
do I hear of the birds, who in their Latin make prayers
each to his mate, even as we here to those loved ladies
whom our thoughts intend ; and therefore I, who

IL MIGLIOR FABBRO 27

have set my thought upon the noblest, should make
a chanson of fine workmanship above all the rest, where
there be not a false word or a rhyme strained.

ii

I was not tortured nor taken with fears when first
I entered into that castle behind its barriers, there
where dwells my lady, of whom I have great hunger
such as never had the nephew of St William.
A thousand times a day I yawn and stretch [I give the
most vigorous and perhaps brutal, though exact equiva-
lent of two words which the euphuist would render
c languish ' and ' yearn ' ] because of that fair who
surpasseth all others even as true joy surpasseth ire and
fury [rampa].

in

Well was I welcomed and my words attended, so that
I was not wrong in choosing her, but I wished rather
to take the fine gold than a twig, that day when I and
my lady kissed, and she made me a shield of her fair
dark blue mantle, so that the false tale-bearers should
not see us ; the tale-bearers with their cobra's tongues,
whence so many ill words are set abroad.

IV

May God, the Chosen, by whom were absolved the
sins of the blind Longinus, wish if it please him, that
I and my lady lie within one chamber where we shall
make a rich covenant, whereon great joy attendeth ;
where, with laughter and caresses, she shall disclose
to me her fair body, with the glamour of the lamplight
about it. \_E quel remir contral /urns de la lampaJ\

28 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

The flowering bough with the flowerets in bud,
which the birds make tremble with their beaks, was
never more fresh (than she) ; wherefore I would not
wish to have Rome without her, nor all Jerusalem, but
altogether, with hands joined I render me to her, for
in loving her the king from beyond Dover would have
honour, or he to whom are Estela and Pampeluna.

The last line of the fourth stanza may well be used
to differentiate Arnaut Daniel from all other poets of
Provence.

" And its glowing against the lamplight." 1

Surely the delicacy of thought, the absolute sense of
beauty which could beget this line may justify the
praise even of him who sang,

" Tu9 nuvoletta, in forma piu che umana
Foco mettesti dentro alia mla mente"

before he sang of the paradisal rose.

There is also in the VHIth Canzon a clever bit of
technique, which, because it is as beautiful as it is
clever, is worthy of note.

" High and low among the first come leaves, the
boughs and sprays are new with flowers, and no

1 There is in the " Muerte del Conde de Niebla " of Juan de
Mena (Cordovan, died in 1456) a line strangely different, yet oddly
akin to this line of Daniel's. Mena, in enumerating the evil omens
which attend the Count's embarkation, does not mention the appear-
ance of the water, but suggests it in speaking of the sullen glow in
the armour.

" T dar nueva lumbre las armas y hierros"
Literally,

" And the arms and irons give forth new (or strange) reflections."

IL MIGLIOR FABBRO 29

bird holds mute a mouth or throat, but cries and
sings,

" cadahus,
en son us "

each one in his fashion. For the joy I have of them
and of the season I would sing, but love assails me,
and sets the words and song in accord. [This
means, I think, not merely " in harmony with
each other," but "sets them in accord with himself";
though it is possible that I here read into the Proven9al
more than it actually says, having in my mind
"Purg." 24, 52.

" lo mi son un die, quando amor mi spira, no to, ed
a quel modo che ditta dentro, vo significando."

"I am, within myself, one who, when love breathes
into me, take note, and go making manifest after what
manner he speaketh."

The imitation of the bird note, " cadahus, en son us "
continues through the remaining stanzas. Thus II. ,
" Er va sus, qui qitn mus" and III.,

" Mas pel us
Estauc clus"

Of the eighteen extant poems of Daniel one is a
satire too rank for the modern palate. Three begin
with a stanza of spring; one of April; one of
May or June, it would seem ; one of fruit time ; twp
of autumn ; one of winter. The rest are of love with-
out preface, except the rhyme of the Uncle and the
Nail, " L'Oncla et 1'ongla," which is bad enough to
have been his first experiment with the sestina, and is,
unfortunately, the only one which survives.

The IVth ode opens,

u When the ice is gone and over and remains not on

30 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

hill nor in hollow, and in the garden the flowers tremble
on the ' between the tips ' where the fruit comes,
the flowers and the songs and the clear piping and the
quaint, sweet season bid me clap my hands with joy,
here at the time of April's coming in."

The Vth,

" When I see leaf and flower and fruit appear in the
twigs of the trees, and hear the song and clamour
which the frogs make in the rill and the birds in the
wood, then love putteth forth leaf and flower and fruit
in my heart, so gently that he steals the night from me
when other folk sleep and rest and take pleasure."

Perhaps such stanzas may suggest by what process
the canzo of these southern companions of Richard
Plantagenet was in a less pliable language transmuted
into the shorter lyrical forms by the vassals of
Elizabeth Tudor. For such suggestions in the metric
one must of course examine the texts themselves.

The Xth canzo is notable for the quaint passage,
"I have heard and had said a thousand masses for her,
and burnt lights of wax and oil, so that God might give
me good issue concerning her, with whom no fencing
(skill) avails me"; and for the three lines by which
Daniel is most commonly known : —

" leu sul Arnaut qitamas Paura
E cbatz le lebre ab lo bou
E nadi contra suberna"

" I am Arnaut who love the wind,
And chase the hare with the ox,
And swim against the torrent."

These seem to have become a by-word not only in
Provence, but among the moderns.

The monk of Montaldon in a satire alludes to them,

IL MIGLIOR FABBRO 31

not in contempt as is usually supposed, but complaining
that Arnaut has written nothing important since the
time of their composition ; and Daniel himself, in some
later canzos, laughs at them more or less affectionately,
but in a way which shows that they had been bruited
about in jest and discussion. Though a copyist's error
n writing the first line

" Qifamas Laura"

gives us an early example of a pun over-familiar to
the readers of Petrarch, the Provencal jest had its
source in the second line,

" And chase the hare with the ox."

It is regrettable that so much time should have been
wasted on a quibble, and in the rather stupid contest as
to whether the metaphor was permissible. Dante would
seem to rebuke the scoffers obliquely in his line,

" leu sui Arnaut que plor e vau cantan"
" I am Arnaut who weep and go a-singing,"

a line which is, I should think, designedly reminiscent,
and is intended to draw attention to the more im-
portant qualities of Daniel's art : to which qualities one
can scarcely give too much heed, and to the praise of
which, seeing that Dante has praised them to the full,
it is scarcely possible to add.

If one wish to form a relative, critical estimate of
this poet, and to calculate how much he loses in trans-
lation, let him consider this line,

" Al brieu bisaral temps braus"

noting how unmistakably the mere sound suggests that
" harsh north-windish time," whereof is the song ;
and then let him consider what some of our finest

32 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

Elizabethan lyrics would be if re-written in unmeasured
prose.

The excellencies whereby Daniel surpasses the other
Troubadours are not easy to demonstrate in translation.
But I think it safe to say that he was the first to
realise fully that the music of rhymes depends upon
their arrangement, not on their multiplicity. And out
of this perception he wrought that form of canzone
wherein stanza answers to stanza not boisterously, but
with a subtle persistent echo.

His mastery of rhythm is not confined to the move-
ments of these more stately forms, but extends also to
the more jovial lyric measures, as can be seen by this
stanza of his third canzon : —

" Can chai lafueilla Dels ausors entrecims,
Elfreitz sergueilla Don sechal vats1 el vims,
Dels dous refrims Vei sordezir la brueilla
Mas leu soi prims D'amor, qui que s'en tueilla"

Daniel is also to be praised because, through his most
complex and difficult forms the words run often with an
unperturbed order, almost that of prose.

NOTE.

In attempting to decide whether or not Daniel's metrical practice
conforms to Dante's recommendations, one must consider carefully
two passages in the " D. V. E.," ii. 7, 40, where Dante speaks of
trisyllabic or almost trisallibic words —

" vel vicinissima trisyllabitati " ;
and ii. 5, 26 seq., where

" Ara auziretz encabalite chantars "
is considered as hendecasyllabic.

" nam du<z consonantes extreme non sunt de syllaba pr&cedente"

CHAPTER III

PROEN9A

THE culture of Provence finds its finest expression in
the works of Arnaut Daniel. Whatever the folk
element in Proven9al poetry may have been, it has left
scant traces. The poetry, as a whole, is the poetry
of a democratic aristocracy, which swept into itself, or
drew about it, every man with wit or a voice. The
notable exceptions are the dance songs, for there is
nothing to prevent our acceptance of such catches as

" Quant lo gllos era fora

bel ami
Vene vos a mi"

or, " La Regine Avrillouse," for songs actually sung by
the people at out-of-door festivities.

"The April-like Queen," or songs of like character,
may well have been used in connection with such frag-
ments of the worship of Flora and Venus as survived
in the spring merry-makings : the dance itself is clearly
discernible in its rhythm.

" Al entrada del tens clar — ay a !
Per ioie renovelar — aya,
E plr jalous irritar
Vuol la reglna demonstrar — aya9
Qu' eP e si amorouse."

Refrain —

" A la vi, a la vi jalous
Lasson nos, lasson nos
Ealllar entre nos"

C 33

34 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

There is in the movement no suggestion of the beauti-
ful flowing of garments, and the harmonious sway of
line which Catullus had in mind when he wrote the

" Dlanae sumus in fide
Puellae et puerl integri"

But we are hardly fair in comparing " La Regine
Avrillouse " to this Latin verse, which follows the classic
dance of worship. This quasi-Zarabondilla, or Taran-
tella, is the successor, one supposes, of the scandalous
Cordax of the later Empire. At the time of " La Regina
Avrillouse," the worshippers of Diana, and the Star of
the Sea, are moving to the still graver music of ritual,
safe in their cloisters.

" The Alba " is debatable ground ; the earliest known
Alba is in Latin, with five classical names in nine lines
of verse ; but the Prove^al burden may have been
taken from some purely popular song.

The fragment beginning

" Quan lo rossinhoh escna "

may easily be popular. It runs :

u When the nightingale cries to his mate, night and
day, I am with my fair mistress amidst the flowers,
until the watchman from the tower cries " Lover, arise,
for I see the white light of the dawn, and the clear day."

The finest Alba, that which begins

" En un vergier sotzfueilla <Talbespi" *

though anonymous, may be either of the court or of
the people. But the friend is "cortes" courteous, or
courtly.

The first Troubadour honourably mentioned is of
courtly rank: William IX., Count of Poitiers (1086-

1 There is a translation of this poem in the " Exultations."

PROENQA 35

1127). This great crusader, and most puissant prince,
belongs rather in one of Mr Hewlett's novels than in
a literary chronicle : his fame rests rather upon deeds
than upon the eight graceful songs that have survived him.

The first great finder was of different rank ; the
razo, or prose preface, says of him :

"Bernart of Ventadorn (1148-95) was of Limousin,
of the Castle of Ventadorn, and was one of low degree,
son, to wit, of a serving-man who gathered brushwood
for the heating of the oven wherein was baked the
castle bread."

Becoming a u fair man and skilled," and knowing
how to make poetry, and being courteous and learned,
he is honoured by the Viscount of Ventadorn ; makes
songs to the Countess ; makes one or two songs too
many to the Countess ; with the sequel of a Countess
under lock and key, and one more Troubadour wandering
from court to court, and ending his days at the
monastery of Dalon.

Sic dixit Hugh of St Circ, as the son of the afore-
mentioned Countess of Ventadorn, told it unto him.
The best known of Ventadorn's songs runs as follows :

" Quant ieu vey !a' lauzeta mover
De joi sas alas contral ray"

" When I see the lark a-moving
For joy his wings against the sun-light,
Who forgets himself and lets himself fall
For the sweetness which goes into his heart ;
Ai ! what great envy cometh unto me for him whom I see so

rejoicing !
It marvelleth me that my heart melts not of desiring.

Alas ! so much did I think I knew

Of Love, and so little do I know of it, for I cannot

Hold myself from loving

Her from whom I shall never have anything toward.

36 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

She hath all my heart from me, and she hath from me all my wit

And myself and all that is mine.

And when she took it from me she left me naught

Save desiring and a yearning heart.

I had no power over myself nor have had ever, since
it let me see in her eyes a mirror that much pleased me.

0 mirror, since I mirrored myself in thee, the deep
sighs have slain me, for I have lost myself, as Narcissus
lost himself in the fount.

Of ladies I despair, I will trust me to them no more,
for, ever as I was wont to champion them, so now I
dis-champion them, since I see that one holdeth me
not in grace. As for them that destroy and confound
me, I fear them all and mistrust them, for well do I
know what sort they are.

All this makes my lady seem a good woman, where-
fore I upbraid her, for I do not wish what one should
wish and I do that which one should.

1 am fallen into ill favour, and in sooth I have done
as the fool on the bridge (probably an allusion to the
fable of the greedy dog, from .ZEsop), and I do not
know why it happened to me, except that I climb the
mount too far.

Grace is lost in sooth, and I will never taste it again,
for she who should have most of it, hath it never, and
where shall I seek it?

Ah ! how cruel will it seem to whoso sees her, that
she let this desirous wretch, who will never have peace
without her, die, and aided him not."

At this time likewise lived Jaufre Rudel, Prince of
Blaia (i 140-70), whose love for the Countess of Tripoli
has been re-sung by so many; but the song that he
himself made for his love afar, runs as follows :

PROEN^A 37

" Lan quand II torn son lone en mai
M' es beh douz chans (f auze/s de lonh."

" When the days are long in May
Fair to me are the songs of birds afar.
And when I am parted from her
I remember me of a love afar,

And I go with a mind gloomy and so bowed down
That no song nor white thorn flower
Pleaseth me more than the winter's cold.

Never more will I take me joy of love
Unless it be of this love afar,
For a nobler and fairer I know not of
In any place either near or far.

So true and fine is her worth, that on her account I
would I were proclaimed captive there in the realm of
the Saracens.

Sooth it would seem as joy, when I should seek, for
love of God, an hospice afar ; and if it please her, I
would lodge near to her, though I be from afar. There
would there be faithful speaking together, when the
far-come lover should be so close that he might have
his solace of fair speaking.

Wrathful and joyous do I depart when I see this
love afar ; for I see her not in the body, for our lands
are set apart too far. Many's the step and the road
between us, though for all that I am not divided from
her; but all shall be as it pleaseth God.

I have true faith in God, whereby I shall see this
love afar.

But for one good that falleth to me thereby I have
two griefs, for she is removed from me so far.

Aie ! for I would be a pilgrim thither if only my

38 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

staff and my scrip (? cloak) might be mirrored in her
fair eyes.

" God, who hast made all things that come and go,
And hast fashioned me out this love afar,
Give me power, such as I have not in my heart,
So that in short space I shall see this love afar,
Verily and in a place set to our need,
Be it room or garden it will alway seem to me a palace.

" He speaketh sooth who calls me covetous
And desirous of this my love afar, for no other joy would delight

me so greatly, as the enjoyment of my love afar.
But she whom I desire is so hostile to me !
Thus hath my destiny bewitched me to love and be unloved.

" But she whom I love is so against me !

May the ' weird ' be utterly cursed who hath fated me to love and
not be loved."

There is also a less quoted song of Rudel's which
should not escape notice.

Incipit.

" When the rill frees it from the fount as is its wont,
and when appears the flower eglantine and the nightin-
gale upon the bough trills, and refrains and lowers his
sweet song and phrases it, right is it that I should make
4 refrain ' for my love in a land afar."

At this time lived also Peire d'Auvergne, of whom
Dante speaks ("D. V. E." i. 10) as using that Langue
d'Oc which is a more finished, sweeter language for poetry
than the Langue d'Oil ; also Guillaume of Cabestang,
whose heart his lady ate after he was dead, not
knowing what she did, nor that her husband had
slain him through jealousy, and contrived the trick;
and that sweet singer Arnaut of Marvoil, that loved
in his whole life one lady only — so far as we know from
the philologists. And but a little while after came

PROENgA 39

the other two, who form with Daniel the great triad
mentioned in " D. V. E." ii. 2. I mean Giraut of Bornelh
and Bertrans de Born.

The headless trunk which Dante encounters i~>
Malebolge arrests not the attention more quickly than
do the fierce words of this chastelan of Aultaforte —
this lover of strife for strife's sake, who sings of his
Lady Battle, as St Francis of Poverty, or the gentler
rimers of " those ladies whom their thoughts attend."

Dante ("Inf." xxviii.), remaining to watch the dismal
herd, Malatesta da Rimini, Guido of Fano, Fra Dolcino,
Mosca, sowers of discord, says :

" Certainly I saw, and to this hour I seem to see, a
trunk going headless, even as went the others of that
dismal throng, and it held the severed head by the hair,
swinging in his hand like a lantern, which looking upon
us, said, ' Ah me"! '

" Of itself it made itself a lamp, and they were two
in one and one in two (He who governeth the universe
knows how this can be).

" When he was just at the foot of the bridge, it
raised its arm with the face full towards us, to bring
near its words, which were : Behold the pain grievous,
thou who, breathing, goest looking upon the dead ; see
if there be pain great as this is, and that thou may'st
bear tidings of me, know me, Bertrans de Born ; who
gave never comfort to the young king. I made the
father and the son rebels between them ; Achitophel
made not more of Absalom and David by his ill-
wandering goads. Because I have sundered persons so
joined (in kinship), I bear my brain parted, Lasso !
from its beginning, which is this torse. Thus is the
counterpass observed in me."

Who is it that, smarting under fate's bitter counter-

40 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

pass, retains such terrible vigour of almost demoniacal
humanity ? None other than he who called the Count
of Brittany, father of Shakespeare's piteous young prince,
"Rassa," and the King of England "Yea and Nay,"
and the young king, his son, " Sailor," and set strife
between old Henry and his sons. For the death of the
young prince Henry he has left us perhaps the noblest
" Planh " in the Provensal.1

Yet it is not for this lament nor yet for his love
songs that he is most remembered, but for the goad of
his tongue, and for his voiced scorn of sloth, peace,
cowardice, and the barons of Provence. Thus :

" A Perlgordpres del muralh"

" At Perigord near to the wall,
Aye, within a mace throw of it,

I will come armed upon Baiart, and if I find there that fat-
bellied Poitevin,
He shall see how my brand cuts.

For upon the field I will make a bran-mash of his brains, mixed
with the ' maille ' (i.e. the little round discs of his armour)."

Earlier in the same Sirvente he says :

" Every day I am re-soling and sewing up the barons
and re-melting them and warming them over, for I
thought to get them started (loosen them up), but I
am in sooth such a fool to bother with the business, for
they are of worse workmanship than the iron (statue of)
St Lunart, wherefore a man's an ass who troubles about
them.

Every day I contend and contest and skirmish, and
defend and carry backward and forward the battle ;
and they destroy and burn my land, and make wreck of
my trees, and scatter the corn through the straw, and

There is a translation of this poem in " Exultations."

PROENQA 41

I have no enemy, bold or coward, who doth not attack
me."

Much of such song is, of course, filled with politics
and personal allusions, which to-day require explana-
tion. The passages on the joy of war, however, enter
the realm of the universal, and can stand unannotated.
Thus:

" Quan vey pels vergiers desplegar"

" When I see spread through the gardens
The standards yellow and indigo and blue,
The cries of the horses are sweet to me,

And the bruit the jongleurs make sounding from tent to bivouac,
The trumpets and horns and shrill clarions.
Wherefore I would make me a sirvente,

Such as the Count Richard shall hear it. "

I

And it follows^ with every man called by his own
name. Another begins :

"The Count (Raimon V., Count of Toulouse, 1 148-94)
has commanded and moved me by Sir Arramon Luc
d'Esparro, to make for him such a chanson as shall cut
a thousand shields, and wherein (or whereby) shall
be broken and shattered helms, and hauberks and
hoquetons (mail jackets), and pourpoints (doublets, or
the steel collars worn below the helmets)."

Besides the political songs and the laments for Prince
Henry Plantagenet,

" Si tult li do I elh plor eh marimen "

mentioned above, and one beginning,

" My songs have end in anguish and in dule,"

Bertrans has left a number of love songs, among which
is " La Dompra Soisseubuda " (" The Borrowed Lady ") ;
one of the most unique canzons of the period.

42 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

Lady Maent of Montagnac has turned him out, and
he for consolation seeks to make a "borrowed " or ideal
lady ; to which end he, in this song, begs from each
pre-eminent lady of Provence some gift, or some fair
quality : thus, of Anhes, her hair golden as Ysolt's ; of
Cembelins, her love-lit glance; of Aelis, her speech
free running ; of the Viscountess of Chales, her throat
and her two hands ; of Bels-Miralhs (Fair-Mirror), her
gaiety, and so on.

Bertrans finds the song small consolation, as the
patchwork mistress does not reach the lofty excellence
of Maent ; but his verses remain to us refreshingly
naive in their idealism. De Born is at his best, how-
ever, when singing the one lady who ever really held
his affections ; to wit, My Lady Battle ; to whose
praise :

" Well pleaseth me the sweet time of Easter
That maketh the leaf and the flower come out.
And it pleaseth me when I hear the clamour
Of the birds' bruit about their song through the wood ;
And it pleaseth me when I see through the meadows
The tents and pavilions set up, and great joy have I
When I see o'er the campana knights armed and horses arrayed.

And it pleaseth me when the scouts set in flight the folk with

their goods ;
And it pleaseth me when I see coming together after them an

host of armed men.

And it pleaseth me to the heart when I see strong castles besieged,
And barriers broken and riven, and I see the host on the shore all

about shut in with ditches,
And closed in with * lisses ' of strong piles.

Thus that lord pleaseth me when he is first to
attack, fearless, on his armed charger ; and thus doth
he embolden his folk with valiant vassalage, and then
when stour is mingled, each wight should be yare, and

PROENCA 43

follow him exulting ; for no man is worth a damn till
he has taken and given many a blow.

Battle axes and swords, a-battering coloured haumes
and a-hacking through shields, shall we see at entering
melee ; and many vassals smiting together, whence
there run free the horses of the dead and wrecked.
And when each man of prowess shall be come into the
fray he thinks no more of (merely) breaking heads and
arms, for a dead man is worth more than one taken
alive.

I tell you that I find no such savour in eating butter
and sleeping, as when I hear cried " On them ! " and
from both sides hear horses neighing through their
head-guards, and hear shouted 4 To aid ! To aid ! ' and
see small and great falling into the fosses, and on the
grass, and see the dead with lance truncheons, the
pennants still on them, a-piercing their sides.

Barons! put in pawn castles, and towns and cities
before anyone makes war on us.

Papiols, be glad to go speedily to i Yea and Nay/
and tell him there's too much peace about."

The suggestion in the first Envoi, that war can be
waged without risk of too great personal loss to the
actual participants, shows that the song has purpose
as well as purple wording.

In UD. V. E.," Dante says:

"I do not find, however, that any Italian has yet
written poetry on the subject of arms"; and in
Provence itself the other Troubadours may be said to
have satirized the lack of courage, rather than to have
praised the acts of carnage. Thus Sordello, as we shall
see anon.

Dante's third type, Giraut of Bornelh, most popular
of the Troubadours, cited for his songs on " Righteous-

44 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

ness," will seem rather faint after Bertrans. The com-
parison would be almost cruel if Giraut had not been
so over-praised. Despite his reputation, he has left
scarcely one of the finest songs of Provence. Venta-
dour left us the lark song cited above : Peire Bremon
the Song from Syria (see Personas) : mad Peire Vidal
the Song of Breath.

" Ab r alen fir vas me F aire
Qu' en sen venir de Provens a
Tot quant es de lai m* a gens a
Si que quan n' aug ben retraire
Eu m> o escut en rizen
E* n deman per un mot cen
Tan m* es bels quan n* aug ben dire"

" Breathing do I draw that air to me
Which I feel coming from Proven£a,
All that is thence so pleasureth me
That whenever I hear good speech of it
I listen a-laughing and straightway
Demand for each word an hundred more,
So fair to me is the hearing."

" No man hath known such sweet repair
'Twixt Rhone's swift stream and Vensa,
From the shut sea to Durensa,
Nor any place with joys so rare
As among the French folk where
I left my heart a-laughing in her care,
Who turns the veriest sullen unto laughter."

" No man can pass a day in boredom who hath remem-
brance of her, in whom joy is born and begun. He
who would speak her praise to the full, hath no need
of skill and lying. One might speak the best, and yet
she were still above the speech.

"If I have skill in speech or deed hers is the thanks
for it, for proficiency hath she given me and the under-
standing whereby I am a gay singer, and every pleasing

PROENQA 45

thing that I do is because of her fair self, and all joy
needful have I of her fair body, even when I with good
heart desire it."

Piere d'Auvergne has left us the noted song to the
nightingale, which begins :

" Rossinhol al sen repaired

u Nightingale, go see my Lady within her bower, and
speak with her of my state." Bertrans of Born has
left us the ''Borrowed Lady," and in like manner many
singers who gained less fame than Bornelh, seem to
have excelled him one by one at all points. Bornelh
is facile, diffuse, without distinction of style, without
personality. He writes for whoso runs, and he is
singable.

Coleridge says, with truth :

" Our genuine admiration of a great poet is for a con-
tinuous undercurrent of feeling; it is everywhere present,
but seldom anywhere a separate excitement."

Another test of the poetic art is the single line. In
neither the " undercurrent " nor the single line does
Giraut excel.

Mr Yeats gives me to understand that there comes
in the career of a great poet, a certain time when he
ceases to take pleasure in riming "mountain" with
" fountain " and " beauty " with " duty." Giraut of
Bornelh never reached the point where he ceased to
take pleasure in the corresponding banalities. One
must not go too far to the other extreme in estimating
the man : allowance is to be made for the hostility of
our own time toward anything savouring of the didactic
in verse; and it is to be remembered that long-windedness
was by no means such a crime in the twelfth or thirteenth
century as it is to-day. One must remember, also,
that Dante mentions Bornelh four times in the UD. V. E.,"

46 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

and even though this fact be discounted by the possi-
bility that Dante was choosing well-known songs for
purposes of illustration, and that in the first case the
point illustrated by one of Giraut's lines is merely
philological.

The second illustration from Bornelh (" D. V. E."
ii. 2) is the song beginning

" Per solatz reveillar que f es trop endormitz"

" To awake solace
Because it has been too long asleep
And to gather and bring back
Worth which is exhausted
I thought to trouble myself," etc.

II. 5. " Ara auzlretz encabalitz cantars"

" Now you will hear marvellous songs."
II. 6. " Si per mon Sobre-Totz nofos"

" Now if it were not for more ' Sobre-Totz ' (Above All),
Who tells me to sing and be gay,
Neither the soft season when the grass is born,
Nor meadows, nor boughs, nor woods, nor flowers,
Nor harsh lords, and vain loves,
Would be able to put me in motion," etc.

With all due reverence for his modern editors, who
label him "Der Meister des Troubadours," Bornelh
seems to have been a gentle, querulous person, who
began to sing reluctantly, and continued through lack
of sufficient initiative to stop ; laudator temporis acti,
with a whine that might have given matter to Hudibras.
Perhaps the most favourable impression of this " fellow
from Limoges " is to be gained from an Alba, rather
unlike the rest of his work, but which is universally, I
believe, attributed to him.

All the verses, except the last, are supposed to be
spoken by the friend who is guarding the lovers from

PROENCA 47

surprise, a role which would have fitted Giraut most
admirably.

" King Glorious, true light and clarity,
God powerful, Lord if it pleaseth Thee
To my companion be thou faithful aid,
Him have I seen not since the night came on,
And straightway comes the dawn.

Fair companion, sleepest or art awakened ?

Sleep no more, arise softly,

For in the East I see that star increasing,

That leadeth in the day ; well have I known it.

And straightway comes the dawn.

Fair companion, a-singing I call you,

Sleep no more, for I hear that bird a-singing

Who goes crying (queren) l the day through the wood.

And I fear lest the * jealous' assail you,

And straightway comes the dawn.

Fair companion, come out to the window,
And look at the signs of the sky ;
Know if I am a faithful messenger.
If you do not do this it'll be to your harm,
And straightway comes the dawn.

* Bel Companho,' since I left you
I have not slept nor moved from my knees ;
But I have prayed to God, the son of St Mary,
That he give you back to me for loyal friendship,
And straightway comes the dawn !

1 Queren. The misinterpretation of this word seems to be one of
the sacred traditions of Proven£al scholarship. The form is not from
the Latin qu<zro, but from quceror, a deponent with all four participles,
habitually used of birds singing or complaining (vide Horace, " C. S.,"
43 ; Ovid, "Am.," i. 29). Here, the bird sings at the sunrise, or, in
sympathy with the lovers, " complains of the approaching dawn."
Those who translate queren !o jorn per to bosctage, " seeking the day
through the wood," attribute as little intelligence to the birds of
Limoges as they themselves possess. Is the day a peculiar berry, or
a fat grub, that any self-respecting bird should seek it in the under-
brush, or beneath the bark of a tree ?

48 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

' Bel Companho,' out there by the stone porches,

You warned me not to be sleepy.

Since then I have watched all night through until the day.

And now neither my song pleases you, nor does my company.

And straightway comes the dawn ! "

(Then the lover from within) —

" Fair, sweet companion, I am in such rich delight
That I wish there should come never dawn nor day ;
For the noblest that was ever born of mother
I hold and embrace, so that I scarcely heed
The jealous fool or the dawn."

One would also note Bornelh's " Flor de Lis."

" Er 'ai gran joi qu* ieu 'm remembra Famor"

" Now have I great joy when I remember me the love
That holdeth my heart safe in her fidelity.

" Erst came I into a garden and (full of) mingled bird
songs. And when I stood within that fair garden,
there appeared unto me the fair Fleur-de-lys, and took
my eyes and seized my heart, so that since then I have
not had remembrance or perception of anything, except
her on whom my thoughts are bent.
" She is that one because of whom I sing and weep," etc.

Of course he often makes pleasant lines about the spring,
and pleasant sounds, but so did Guillaume de Poitiers, and
Marcabrun, and Giraudon the Red before him, and two
hundred more of his contemporaries and followers.

In accounting for the celebrity of this u fellow from
Limousin," who uses many words which add nothing to
his poems, and whose little to say is eked out long with
melody, one must remember that the Troubadour poetry
was, for the most part, made to sing; the words are
but half the art ; and Giraut may easily have been
skilled above all others in the devising of his airs and

PROENQA 49

tunes ; so that the very faults which estrange the
careful reader to-day may have contributed not a little
to the " accord " of word and music, where the subtler
effects of an Arnaut Daniel, or an Aimeric de Bellinoi
might not have " come over the footlights " when sung ;
and that however little claim Giraut may have to a
place in world-literature, his prominence in his own day
may not have been without sound reason.

Mention should be made of the three remaining
Troubadours cited by Dante, " D. V. E.," ii. 6. Aimeric
of Bellinoi, delightfully —

" Nuls horn non pot cumplir addreicamen"

" No man can so utterly fulfil that which he hath in his heart
But that so soon as it is spoken out or done, it seemeth a little

thing.

Nor doth one love with a true heart
After he thinks he loves too securely (or completely) ;
One so thinking decreases where another advances,
But I never love with such semblance,
But swear, for her whom I hold most dear in my heart
That some one loves her more
And that I think I love her but little."

As I have not come upon the rest of the stanzas
which should, presumably, follow, I give instead one of
his crusading songs :

I. " Sadly being parted from my love,

I sing with mingled joy and weeping
For grief and tears and piteousness

(or piety. Pleta meaning also " piety," a pun is

most certainly to be suspected)
Come to me from the Count my Lord
Who hath taken the Cross to serve God,
And I have joy because God

Forwards him, and I wish that Christendom might
Turn through him to rejoicing,
And that the Lord God be pleased and praised.

50 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

And since God through his great sweetness (doussor)
Deputes as such a champion, he is
Recreant, forsooth, and craven
Who lags behind, and he is cut off from honour,
And whoso goes is graced and honoured.
Let the going be hope of good, of joy and of grace, and
of valour and honour, and of deliverance from evil.

V. Much should they be sans fear,
Secure and good warriors,
Those who go, for they will
Have on their side

Saint George, and God will be with them
Who has absolved and commanded them,
And he who dies without doubt (fearing, hesitation)
Will be in heaven crowned martyr,
Yea, that Lord who is called
God and King and Man
Will be his surety for it."

The razo on Aimeric of Pegulhan (whom Dante
cites just under him of Bellinoi) begins so delightfully
that I must quote it even though it has no bearing on
the art of song.

This Pegulhan a was of Tolosa, son of a burgher,
who was a merchant who had cloth to sell, and he
learned canzos and sirventes, but sang very badly, and
enamoured himself of a uburgesa" his neighbour, and this
love taught him how to make poetry, and he made her
many good canzos. But the husband mixed himself
(se mesclai) up with him and did him dishonour, and
Aimeric avenged himself and struck him with a sword
through the head. Wherefore it was convenient
(convinc) for him (Aimeric) to leave Toulouse."

The seemingly artless razo, with its apparent lack
of cohesion, has at times the marvellous power of giving
a great deal of information in few words. To me it

PROENQA 51

would seem rivalled only by the Hebrew and the
Anglo-Saxon chronicles : presumably this terseness is
given to those who use the quill with difficulty.

Perhaps one razo on Daude de Pradas, Canon of
Magalona, who knew full well the nature of birds of
prey, may be taken as a model of adequate speech :
it summarizes his poetic career thus :

"And he made canzoni because he had a will to
make canzoni and not because love moved him to it ;
and nobody thought much of him or of his songs either."

To return to Aimeric de Pegulhan and the song
which Dante cites :

"Si com Varbres que per sobrecargar" opens,

" As the tree that by over-bearing breaks and harmeth its fruit and

itself,
So have I harmed my fair lady and myself."

It is scarcely remarkable through the next verses,
and one almost wonders why Dante chose it until the
sixth stanza.

" But often my smiles turn to weeping
And I like a fool have joy in my grief
And in my death when I see your face,
And you care not when you see me die,
You abandon me and make me
Like a child which a man makes stop crying
With a * marabotin ' (farthing).
And then when it has begun to be happy,

The man snatches and takes away what he has given it, and then
it weeps and makes grief twice as great as before."

It is easy to see how this vivid simile would have
appealed to the Maestro, who writes, " And then as a
sobbing, beaten child, I fell asleep" ("Purg." v. 21).

52 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

Or, ucol quale il fantolin corre alia mamma quando ha
paura o quando egli e afflitto," at the meeting with
Beatrice in the Paradisal field ("Purg." xxx. 44).

There remains of Dante's list, Folquet of Marseille,
of whose opening line, u tan m'abelis 1'amoras pensamens,"
he is perhaps reminiscent in Daniel's speech ("Purg."

xxvi.).

I say " perhaps," because several Provengal songs open
with the phrase, "Tan m'abelis." Thus Sordello, in
a song that runs, uSo pleasureth me the season newly
come ; So grieveth me the dearth in song and joy."

Folquet's song runs :

" So pleasureth me the amorous thought
Which hath come to beset my true heart
That no other thought can fare there.
Nor is any (other thought) now sweet and pleasant to me.
For I am hers when the grief of it kills me,
And true love lighteneth my martyrdom,
Promising me joy ; but she giveth it to me over slowly,
And hath held me long with fair seeming.

Well do I know that all I do is nothing at all,

And what more can I do if Love wish to slay me ;

For wittingly he (Love) hath given me such desire

As will never be conquered, nor conquer Him.

Thus am I conquered, for the sighs have slain me

So gently, because I have not aid from her whom I desire.

Nor do I expect it from any other,

Nor have I power to wish for another love."

Later in the same song,

" But if you wish me to turn elsewhere,
Part from you, the beauty and the sweet laughter,
And the gay pleasure, that had sent mad my wit ;
Since, as I ween, I must part me from you,

PROENQA 53

Every day thou art more fair and pleasant to me,
Wherefore I wish ill to the eyes that behold you,
Because they can never see you to my good,
But to my ill they see you subtly (or speedily)."

The " Lesser Arnaut," overshadowed in his own day
by Daniel, who was likewise " of Marvoil," of the castle
Ribeyrac, has in our day come deservedly to his share
of praise : he has sung long and sweetly of the Countess
of Beziers, to whose laud these three short verses may
be rendered.

" Fair is it to me when the wind ' blows down my throat,'

(alena here is ' inspire ' in its primary sense : one sees that

he means the * taste ' and ' feel J of the wind)
In April ere May comes in,

And all the calm night the nightingale sings, and the jay,
Each bird in his own speech,

Through the freshness of the morning (frescor del mati),
Goeth bearing joy rejoicingly
As he lodgeth him by his mate.

And since every terrene thing
Rejoiceth when the leaf is born,
I cannot keep silent the memory
Of a love whence I am happy.
Through nature and usage it happeneth
That I lean toward joy,
There, where I did the sweet folly
That thus comes back into my heart.

More white than Helen is my ' fair-adorned,'

And than a flower that is born,

And full of courtesy she is,

And her teeth are white with true words,

Her heart frank, sans villeiny.

Fresh is her hue, and her hair is golden brown.

May God save her, who hath given her this seignory,

For never have I seen a nobler lady."

For the sweet simplicity of adequate speech, he,
Arnaut of Marvoil, is to be numbered among the best
of the courtly u makers " of the South.

54 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

Of the figures in the " Commedia " one yet remains
unmentioned : the Mantuan Sordello.

The passage in the Vlth Canto of the " Purgatorio "
runs thus :

Virgil. uBut see there a soul set alone and solitary
looketh towards us, and will teach us the speediest
way." We came to him. O Lombard soul . . . O
anima Lombarda, how wast thou haughty and disdain-
ful, and in the movement of thine eyes majestic and
slow!

Nought it said to us, but let us go on, only watching,
in the guise of a lion when he crouches. Yet did Virgil
draw on towards him, praying that he would show us
the best ascent, and he replied not to the demand, but
questioned us concerning our country and our life.

And my sweet guide began, "Mantua . . . ," and
the shade, so self-contained, leapt towards him from the
place where it first was, saying, " O Mantuan, I am
Sordello, of thy land, and they embraced each other."

Then follows that terrible invective, like unto none
since Ezekiel cried doom on Tyre.

" Ahi serva Italia, di dolor ostello
Nave senza nocckiero in gran tempesta
Non donna di provinrie, ma bordello ! "

and the seventy lines that follow.

Bordello's right to this lonely and high station above
the " valley of the kings " has at times been questioned ;
but the following sirvente justifies at least the adjective
"disdegnosa" (1. 62).

" Now would I mourn for Sir Blancatz with this sound over-faint,
With a sad heart and a wounded, and I have good reason to,
For in him had I commingled
My Lord and my good friend.
And every valiant good is lost in his death,

PROENQA 55

And so mortal is the harm (to the virtues)

That I have no suspicion that it will ever be undone, except in
this guise, that they take his heart out, and have it eaten by
the Barons who live un-hearted, for then would they have
hearts worth something.

First let eat of the heart — for he hath great need of it —
The Emperor of Rome, if he would conquer
The Milanese by force, for they (now) hold him conquered,
And he lives disherited in spite of his Germans.
And secondly, let the French king eat of it,
Then will he recover Castile that he lost by folly.
But he will never eat it if his mother does not wish him to.
For it is easily seen, to his credit, that he never does anything
that troubles her.

As to the English king, since he is little courageous,

It pleaseth me that he eat well of the heart,

Then will he be valiant and worth something,

And will recover the land because of which he lives starved of

all worth ;-
Since the King of France, knowing his nothingness, took it from

him.
Let the Castilian king eat for two, for he holds two kingdoms,

and isn't good enough for one,
But if he eats, I wager he does it in secret,
For if his mother knew of it, she would beat him with a stick.

I would that the King of Aragon eat of the heart straightway,

For it would make him unload from himself the shame

That he gat this side of Marseille and Amilau,1 for in no other

way may he get honour by anything he could say or do.
And afterward I would that they give some (of the heart) to the

King of Navarre ;
For I have heard that he was worth more as count than (now)

as king.

And it is wrong when God exalts a man into great power
That lack of pluck make him decline in worth.

The Count of Toulouse hath need indeed to eat of it,
If he remembers what (land) he was wont to hold, and what
he holds.

1 Amilau ? a Milano — i.e. at Milan.

56 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

For with another heart his loss (lost lands) will not come back,
And it does not look as if they would return, with the one he

has in himself.

Also the Provenpal count has need to eat of it if he remember,
That a man disherited lives hardly, and is worth naught.
And even if he would defend his head effectually
He has need to eat of the heart for the great burden which he

bears.

The barons wish me ill for that which I speak well,
But they may know that I prize them as little as they me.
' Bel Restaur,' if I may but find grace with you,
Set everyone to my loss (harm) who holdeth me not as friend."

There is a quaint simplicity also about some of the
devotional poetry.

Thus Guilhem d'Autpol's " Alba " to the Virgin,
" Esperanza de totz ferms esperans," beginning, —

" Hope of all that truly hope indeed,
River of pleasure, fountain of true grace,
Chamber of God, garden whence was born all good,
Repose without end, protector of orphan children,
Consolation of the disconsolate faithful,
Fruit of whole joy, security of peace,
Port without peril, gate of the saving pass,
Joy sans sadness, flower of life without death,
Mother of God, lady of the firmament,
Sojourn of friends, true delight without turmoil,
Of Paradise the light and clarity and dawn.

Glorious one, so great is the joy that comes to Thee

Because of that one who championeth the world and Thee,

That man can say no more good in praising Thee

Tho' all the world were set to praising Thee,

For in Thee are all pleasant bounties,

Joys, honours, healings and charities ;

Orchard of love, for in thy precious garden

Descended the fruit that destroyeth our death,

Dry twig giving fruit without seed,

Door of heaven, way of salvation,

Of all the faithful, the light, and clarity, and dawn."

PROENQA 57

(And so on to the Envoi)

" God give life with joy sans bitterness
In Paradise with all his company
To all who shall speak this « alba.' "

The same spirit is found again, with a plea for the
common speech, in Peire de Corbiac's " Queen of the
Angels."

" Lady, queen of the angels,
Hope of believers,
Since sense commandeth me
I sing of you in the ' lenga romana,'
For no man, just nor sinner,
Should keep from praising you,
As his wit best befits him,
Be it in * roman ' or in the ' lenga latina.'

Lady,^rose without thorns,

Fragrant above all flowers,

Dry branch giving fruit,

Land that giveth grain without labour,

Star, mother of sunlight (the sun),

In the world none is like Thee

Neither far nor near.

Lady, you are the eglantine

That Moses found green

In the midst of the burning flames.

Lady, star of the sea,

More luissent than all others,

The sea and the wind assail us,

Show us the certain way,

For if you wish to bring us to good harbour,

Nor ship nor pilot have fear

Of the tempest which troubles them

Nor of the swelling of the sea."

In striking contrast, we find the satirical monk of
Montaldon.

58 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

" The other day I was in Paradise,
Therefore am I gay and joyous,
For most pleasant to me
Was God, he whom all things obey,
Earth, sea, vale and mountain ;
And he said to me, ' Monk, why comest thou,
Why art not at Montalbon,
Where you have greater company ? '

' Monk, it pleaseth me not

That thou should'st be shut in a cloister, . . .

But I love rather song and laughter,

The world is better for them

And Montalbon gets a rake-off/ "

That is, the income of the monastic house is increased
by its reputation for hospitality.

Peire Cardinal's violent invectives against the corrup-
tion of the church temporal should be read by anyone
interested in the history of the period. There is in
Farnell l a good account of Cardinal, and some notice of
Guillem Figieira, another satirist.

The "tenzon," or song of dispute, is relatively unim-
portant in provence. The most favourable idea of this
form is to be gained from the u Fresca rosa aulentis-
sima" of the Sicilian, Ciullo d'Alcamo,2 but this is
nearer to the "Pastorella" than to the "Tenzo," which
was properly not a dramatic dialogue, but an argument
about a theory or on such a question as " which man
did Lady Maent honour most ; him on whom she smiled,
him whose hand she touched, or him whom she tapped
with her foot under the table."

The Pastorella has a peculiar interest in so far as it
is one of the roots of modern drama. This form of
dialogue is never more sprightly than when used by

1 Ida Farnell, " Lives of the Troubadours." David Nutt, pub.

2 Vid. Rossetti's " Early Italian Poets."

PROEN^A 59

one of the earliest singers, Marcabrun, from whom we
have the following : —

" The other day beside a hedge
I found a low-born shepherdess,
Full of joy and ready wit,

And she was the daughter of a peasant woman ;
Cape and petticoat and jacket, vest and shirt of fustian,
Shoes and stockings of wool.

I came towards her through the plain,

' Damsel,' said I, ' pretty one,

I grieve for the cold that pierces you.'

' Sir,' said the peasant maid,

* Thank God and my nurse

I care little if the wind ruffles me,

For I am happy and sound.'

' Damsel,' said I, * pleasant one,

I have turned aside from the road

To keep you company.

For such a peasant maid

Should not, without a suitable companion,

Shepherd so many beasts

In such a lonely place.'

' Sir,' she said, ' whoever I am,

I well know sense from folly,

Your companionship, sir,' so said the peasant maid,

' Even if your companionship were set where it should be,

Whoever had it wouldn't have much to boast of.'

1 Damsel of gentle bearing,

Your father was a gentleman, he who begot you in your mother,

For she was a courteous peasant.

The more I look at you the more you please me,

And I'd take pleasure in making you happy,

If you were only a little human.'

' Sir, all my family and my lineage

I see swinging and drawing the scythe and the plow,

Sir,' so spake the peasant maid.

60 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

' But there are such folk playing at knighthood
As ought to be doing the same
Six days out of the week.'

' Damsel,' said I, * gentle fairy

The stars gave you at your birth a marvellous beauty
Etc. . . .

The adventure is finally brought to a " successful "
termination.

There is a series of " pastorellas " by Giraut Riquier,
"the last of the Troubadours," which is not without
interest. The last of the series begins :

"To St PosofTomeiras
I came the other day,
All dabbled with the rain,
Into the power of an inn-hostess,
Whom I didn't know,
And I was greatly surprised when the old woman grinned. . . .

It is the forgotten " toza " or damsel of his earlier
pastorals, and the courtly Riquier, finding that she has
a grown daughter, takes up the old game with the
second generation, who is, it seems, as obstinate as her
mother.

CHAPTER IV

GESTE AND ROMANCE

DANTE tells us that the best narrative poetry of the
Middle Ages was written in the " langue d'oil," the
dialect of Northern France. The subjects of these longer
poems, germane to all mediaeval Europe, are catalogued
in the Provengal romance, " Flamenca," in a description
of a wedding feast, and of how the jongleurs told tales
thereat. The original is quite as crude as the following
translation : the octosyllabic verse is that ordinarily used
in such narratives.

" Who would to hear divers accounts
Of kings and marquises and ' countes '
Could hear of them full all he would.
No ear was there in grievous mood,
For one there told of Priamus,
Another spoke of Piramus,
Another counts fair Helen's worth,
How Paris sought, then led her forth.
Another told of Aeneas,
And of Queen Dido's dolorous pass,
Abandoned in such wretched state.
One of Lavinia doth relate,
Whose note on quarrel-bolt did fly
To him who watched the tower most high.
One told of Pollonices,
Of Tideus and Etiocles.
Another told of Appolloine,
How that he held Tyre and Sidoine.
One there told ' King Alexander,'
Another ' Hero and Leander.' "

62 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

And so on — of Catmus, of Jason and the Dragon,
of Alcides, of Phyllis and Demophon, Narcissus, Phito,
Orpheus, Philistine Goliath, Samson and Delilah, Mac-
abeu; and of "Julius Cassar, how he passed the sea
quite alone, and did not pray to Nostre Senor because
he knew no fear of water."

" One spoke of that Table Round
Where came no man, save he were found
Fit for the King's recognisance,
Where never failed their valiance.
And of Don Gavain spoke there one,
And of the lion his companion,
And of that knight who Lunette freed ;
To the Breton maid one there gave heed,
That held Sir Lancelot in prize
And gave him ' no ' for all his sighs.
Another tells of Percival
Who rode his horse into the hall.
One telleth ' Eric and Enida,'
And one ' Ugonet of Perida.'
And one recounts how Governail
Had for Sir Tristram grave travail.
Another of Feniza saith,
Her nurse caused her to play at death.
The * Fair Unknown's ' tale one doth yield,
And one speaks t The Vermilion Shield.' "

And further, of Guiflet, Calobrenan, Quec the
Seneschal, Mordred, Ivet ; the Star of Ermeli ; the
trick of the old man of the mountain ; how Karles
Maines held Germany.

" Of Clodoven and of Pipi
(Clodovic and Pipin)
One doth all the history tell,
And one of how from glory fell
Don Lucifer 'per son ergoil?
One tells < The Valet of Nantoil,'
And one * Olivier of Verdun.'
One speaks the verse of Marcabrun
(An early troubadour),

GESTE AND ROMANCE 63

One there tells how Daedalus

Knew well to fly, while Icarus

Was drowned for his flippancy " ; etc.

Here we have some extended notice of what
Dante notes (" D. V. E." i. 10) as u Translations from
the Bible, compilations of exploits of Trojans and
Romans, and the exquisite legends of King Arthur."
"Arturi regis ambages pulcerrimse, et quam plures
alias historiae ac doctrinae." Among this, " quite a
number of other histories and doctrines," we must
count the Chacons de Geste, represented in the
" Flamenca " by the names Charlemagne, Clodovic,
and Pipin ; and the didactic poetry not noted in the
" Flamenca."

Now, for the finest of these " Chansons de Geste,"
these songs of action, we must seek, not among the
lilies of France, but,

" Sotto la protezion del grande scudo
In che sogglace U leone e soggioga"

"Paradiso," xii. 153-4.

That is, in Spain, beneath that " great shield whereon
the lion submits and subdues."

Dante is little concerned with Spain, as was natural,
he and the " Poema del Cid " being contemporary ; and
the langue d'oc, the Provencal, having held long the
lordship of all courtly verse. Even the earlier French
efforts toward epic-making * seem to have interested him
little. This also is just, Virgil being his guide, and the
French chancons not being in his day sufficiently old to
charm by their mere quaintness.

In Italy the songs of deed are not indigenous, and
after one has fallen back in sheer exhaustion from the

1 One must clearly distinguish between the " romance " and the
epic or " geste."

64 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

later Italian embroiderings on them, one might wish
they had never been imported.

There are many who will disagree with my prefer-
ence of the " Cid," and cry up the changon de Roland
as the finer poem ; but in its swiftness of narration, its
vigour, the humanness of its characters, for its inability
to grow old, the Spanish "geste" seems to me to
surpass its French predecessor, and to merit the first
place in our attention.

The " Poema del Cid"

From the opening, in his dismantled castle at Bivar,
where the scene and speech are not unworthy of Greek
tragedy, it, is the unquenchable spirit of that most
glorious bandit, Ruy Diaz, which gives life to the verse
and to the apparently crude rhythm. Looking upon
the barren perches of the hawks, and the desolation of
Bivar, the Cid, sobbing greatly, says :

" I thank thee, Lord Father, who art on high, that
this thing has come upon me through mine evil enemies! "
(i.e. and not through my own misdeeds).

It is in this spirit that he accepts all the odds against
him. Next we find it in his buoyant greeting to
Albarfanez —

" Albricias ! " (the messenger's cry for largesse, the
reward for having brought good tidings).

"Albricias! Albarfanez, for we are thrown out of
the land ! "

The next delight is in the scene with the little maid
of nine. After the ride from Bivar, Myo Cid comes
to his town house, "su posar," in Burgos, but the
King's letters have been before him, and everything is
closed against him ; even in his own house they fear to

GESTE AND ROMANCE 65

greet him, and when he comes thundering up the
narrow cobbled street, and beating at the door with his
mailed heel, they send out to a balcony or window, a
child, who repeats child-wise, parrot-wise, the exact
words of the King's writ. This is as true to the child
as is the drawing of all the varied individuals in the
Poema to humanity ; and it is for this drawing to the
life, and for the variety of actors who are individuals,
not figures, that the Poema owes much of its vitality ;
just as it is to the Spanish sense of tableau and dramatic
setting, that the Poema owes so much of its charm.
For example, here : the crowded street, the variegated
trappings of the men, the armour and the pennants ;
and round about them that great natural theatre, on
the Greek pattern : the castle of Burgos on the hills
behind, and the sweep of las campaHas beneath them ;
and in the midst 'the child, lisping high words in all
simplicity ; and the grave, bearded Campeador mounted
below her, assenting with as fine a simplicity : it takes
but a handful of lines in the Spanish.

As in the Greek, or, indeed, as in any moving poetry,
the simple lines demand from us who read, a completion
of the detail, a fulfilment or crystallization about them,
of their implied beauty. The poet must never infringe
upon the painter's function ; the picture must exist
around the words ; the words must not attempt too far
to play at being brush strokes.

The next set of tableaux is as vivid as it is different
from the last ; and it is as psychological, as simple, and
as dramatic as anything in modern literature.

Martin Antolinez, el Burgales de pro, despite the
King's orders, brings supplies to Ruy Diay, going into
voluntary exile by this act. He and the Cid then
arrange the picaresque hoax upon the two Jews, Raquel
and Vidas. The Cid has been exiled on the false

66 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

charge of malversation of booty taken at a certain
siege ; he and Antolinez now turn this to their advan-
tage, and repair their lack of funds. Two chests,
covered with vermilion leather and studded with gold
nails, are carefully filled with sand and offered for
pawn, on condition that they be not disturbed for a
year. Antolinez's manipulation of the brokers, eager
enough for gain to treat with a banished man by stealth,
is delightful. The author's quaint humour is shown as
he talks of their joy at the great weight of the splendid
chests, and in Antolinez's further guile.

"Well, Raquel and Vidas, I've done you a good
turn. It seems to me my work is worth a pair of
breeches."

He gets the price of the breeches, thirty marks of
silver.

The next tableau is the Cid's farewell to Dona
Ximena at San Pedro Cardena, where he leaves with
the Abbot, Don Sancho, money for her keep : there is
none of that disregard of the means of life prevalent in
certain types of modern novel.

Then begins the series of my Cid's triumphs.
Castejon is taken by ambush, the booty re-sold to the
Moors, and the town abandoned. Alcocer, the strong,
is taken by the stratagem of a feigned retreat. The
Cid is here shown to be as well supplied with common-
sense as is Quixote with romantic ideals. There is no
petty spite in the man; no regard for convention.
Speaking to Pedro Vermuez, who bore the standard,
he says, concerning the captives, "We will gain
nothing by killing them, they cannot be sold, there-
fore let them serve us."

Next, King Tamin besieges them : the odds are over-
whelming, but being unable to escape, they determine
to fight. Vermuez, impatient of attack, rushes on

GESTE AND ROMANCE 67

alone, and plants the ensign in the midst of the Moors,
where he maintains it until rescued. Ormsby, in his
translation, here brings out much of the motion of the
passage describing the charge of the lances : they are
fighting 300 to 3000.

" Trezientas Ian fas son, todas tlenen pen done s ;
Senos moros matarony todos de senos colpes ;
Ala tornada que fazen otros tantos son.
Veriedes tantas lan$as premer y a/far.
Tan fa adarga foradar y passar,
Tanta lorigafalssa desmanchar
Tantos pendones blancos salir en sangre
Tantos buenos cavallos sin sos duenos andar"

Roughly :

" Three hundred lances are they, with pennants every one ;
Each man kills his Moor, with single blows 'tis done,
And now at their returning as many more go down,
And ye might well have seen there so many lances press and rise,
And many an oval shield there riven lies.
The ill-forged coats-of-mail in sunder fly,
In blood there issue the many bannerets white,
And many a good horse runs there whom no man doth ride. " *

There is constant drama not only in the action, but
in the contending passions of the actors. When, after
this victory, the Cid sends Minaya back to Alfonso
with 300 caparisoned horses, the King speaks thus :
u Three weeks is too little time in which to pardon a
man who has earned my wrath, but since it is from the
Moors, I accept the gift. You, Minaya, I pardon and
restore you your lands ; as for the Cid, I say nothing,
but anyone who likes has my permission to join him
without fear of having his holdings confiscated."

The Cid moves on to the pine- wood of Tebar, and

1 Not having " Ormsby " at hand, I have had to use my own
translation, which, however, follows the assonance of the original.

68 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

levies tribute up to Saragossa. Raymond Berengar,
Count of Barcelona, spoken of as a Frenchman, is
offended and comes against him. Taken unaware, the
Cid tries to avoid conflict, is forced into it, boasts of
the Galician saddles of his company, wins the battle
and the sword u Colada." Berengar is shown as a fine
foe : captive, he refuses to eat for three days, until
the Cid promises to free him and two other knights.
For his friends' sake he eats and is set free. The
Cid wishes him good speed and invites him to come
back and have another go at fighting when he feels
inclined. "You can go in peace from me, my
Cid," replies Berengar. "I've paid you in full for
this year."

Next, my Cid is shown speaking like a character in
one of Shaw's plays. The Valencians have come
against him. He says : " Well, we are come into
their land, we do them much ill, we levy tribute and
drink their wine and eat their bread; they come to
assail us and they are right. To-morrow we exiles will
go out against them and see who deserves his pay."

" And in the white of the dawn my Cid went to smite them.
' In the name of the Creator and Sant lago, smite them, caval-

leros, with love and great willingness.
For I am Ruy Diaz, my Cid of Bivar ! '
And many a tent-cord you might have seen broken,
And many a pole wrenched up and many a tent lying flat."

After the victory, two Moorish kings are slain, three
years are spent in general operations, driving the Moors
back to the sea-coast. Then after ten months' siege
Valencia surrenders : the " Senna " (banner) is set on
the Alcazar.

The King of Seville, with thirty thousand men, comes
against them and is defeated. The Cid's beard increases
in length ; he swears it shall be famous among Moors

GESTE AND ROMANCE 69

and Christians alike. This is, of course, a memory of
Charlemagne, " le roi a la barbe chenue."

The warrior bishop Jeronimo appears for the first
time and is given the spiritual rule in Valencia. He
recalls the fighting bishop Turpin in the Chacon de
Roland ; but he is a type of the time, and not necessarily
a figure borrowed by the author from the older poem.

The Cid sends back to Castile for his wife, and sends
a hundred horses to Alfonso.

Here ends the pure "geste" of the Cid, and here,
or hereabouts, begins the " Romance" of the Cid, or
rather the " Romance of the Infantes of Carrion."

To Minaya at court come Raquel and Vidas demand-
ing repayment. They are put off. In court appear
Garcia Ordoneza grumbling about my Cid, and the
Infantes of Carrion whispering together. At Valencia
my Cid rides to meet his family, and the newly-taken
steed Bavieca is seen for the first time in the poem and
is approved for his speed. The Cid takes his wife and
daughters to the Alcazar to show them his captured
city and the sea.

Next March, Morocco, with fifty thousand men,
comes against them. u 4000 less 30 has my Cid." After
the victory the tent of the King of Morocco is sent to
Alfonso. Garcia Ordonez grumbles. The Infantes
openly ask the Cid's daughters from Alfonso. The
King offers pardon to my Cid and suggests the mar-
riages, and one notes that the King is spoken of as
" Alfonso, el de Leon" (He of Leon). The poem is
distinctly Castilian. A meeting is arranged, and the
King receives Myo Cid. The Cid says his daughters
are too young to marry, but that the King may do as
he likes. Thus the responsibility is thrown upon the
King. The wedding takes place, and the first " Cantar "
ends with all living happily in Valencia.

yo THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

" The coplas of this ' Cantar ' go finishing themselves here.
May the Creator avail you and all the Saints."

The second " Cantar " opens as stageably, if not so
seriously, as the first.

The Cid is sleeping, and his pet lion, escaping,
terrifies the two Infantes. Ferran takes refuge under
the Cid's bed, and Diego, rushing through the door,
leaps upon the beam of a wine-press, evidently in use, to
judge by his subsequent appearance. My Cid wakes,
leads the lion back to his cage, and calls for the Infantes,
who appear, to the great amusement of the company.
My Cid orders silence, but the Infantes hold themselves
insulted. Things being in this condition, Bucar comes
against Valencia with fifty thousand tents. The In-
fantes show the white feather, but enter the battle,
after which everyone else is described by name as having
done valiant deeds. After the battle the Cid, with a
most irritating magnanimity, still pretends to believe in
their valour. The Infantes ask leave to depart with
their wives, which is granted.

They plot the death of Avengalon, a Moorish ally of
the Cid, who is acting as their escort; but they are
detected, and he leaves them alone. They abandon
the Cid's daughters in the wood of Colpes, thinking
they have beaten them to death. Feliz Munoz, the
Cid's nephew, finds the daughters ; they are restored,
and vengeance is demanded from the king.

The subsequent scene is arranged in the best
theatrical crescendo. In the "Cortes," the third which
Alfonso has held, my Cid demands first the swords
Colada and Tizon, which he has given to the Infantes ;
they are granted him. Then his possessions ; they also
are granted. Then vengeance for the outrage upon his
children in the wood of Colpes. Judgment is given.
The Kings of Navarre and Aragon appear. The

GESTE AND ROMANCE 71

Infantes are killed in combat. The Cid's daughters
marry Navarre and Aragon in splendour, and the poem
of the Cid ends :

" To-day the Kings of Spain are of his blood,
To all doth honour increase through him, born in a good hour.
He passed from this life on the day of Cinquessima.
May he have pardon of Christ !
Thus may we all just to sinners !
These are the tales of my Cid Campeador,
In this place is the telling completed.
May he who wrote this book see God's Paradise, Amen !
Per Abbat wrote it in the month of May, I245,1 and in romance.
It is read, give us wine if you have no money."

Upon learning from historical sources that the actual
Ruy Diaz of Bivar was not a drivelling sentimentalist,
but a practical' fighting man, certain people have seen
fit to speak of disillusion, and to marvel (in print) that
he came to be chosen the national hero of Spain.

Upon the outer walls of the church of San Juan de
los Reyes, in Toledo, there hang to this day huge rows
of fetters of no delicate pattern, fetters struck from
Christian captives when the town was last re-taken
from the Moors. Anyone who has looked thoughtfully
at this display of venerable restraints understands, I
believe, how any man capable of waging successful war
upon the children of the Prophet might have gained, to
speak gently, a certain popularity.

The relation of the Cid of the "Poema" to the
historical Cid is outside the scope of the present
treatise ; the matter is most admirably presented by
Mr Fitzmaurice Kelly in his " Chapters on Spanish
Literature," from which one concludes that if the

1 At least I believe that is Sr. Ramon Menendez Pidal's present
opinion as to the reading of the date. Per Abbat is by many supposed
to have been the copyist, not the author.

72 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

Campeador had set out with a set of beautiful ideals,
and an earnest desire to become the idol of ballad
writers for the next eight centuries, it is unlikely that
he would ever have taken Valencia ; and although his
biographer, had the humour of the twelfth century been
sufficiently delicate, might have produced an abortive
sort of Don Quixote, we should still lack the bravest of
" cantares."

Some comparison of the Poema del Cid with its French
predecessor is inevitable ; it will be well, therefore, to
give heed to two admirers of the Chacon de Roland.

The French epopee, according to Gaston Paris, takes
its source under Clodovic, and becomes apparent in the
time of Karl Martel : the three figures, Martel, Charle-
magne, and Charles the Bald, are later amalgamated
into one heroic figure, " a la barbe chenue."

The " Roland," dating in its present form from the
second half of the eleventh century, is based upon the
historic fact, which an earlier Latin chronicler dismisses
thus :

" In this battle Edghardus, master of the royal table,
Anselmus count palatine, and Rollandus prsefect of the
borders of Brittany, with very many others, were killed."

That is, Hrodland, Count of the March of Brittany,
commanding the rearguard of Charlemagne's army, was
defeated by the Basques in the Valley of Roncevaux,
August 15, 778 A.D., Charles the Great being at
this time thirty-six years of age.

Three centuries later this tale has solidified into 4002
verses, in what Paris terms the " national style," which
style is likely to seem a rather wooden convention to an
outlander. The personality of the author is said to be
" suppressed," although it might be more exact to
say that it has been worn away by continuous oral
transmission.

GESTE AND ROMANCE 73

Summarizing further, from Paris' lecture on the
" Changon de Roland et la Nationalite fran^aise " :

" You will remember that from their conversion the
French proclaimed themselves the people beloved of
Christ, chosen by him to defend his church."

This ideal pertains in the Chanson : the enemies have
changed, being no longer idolaters whom it is necessary
to convert. They are Mahometans, but the French
Christians are little concerned with distinctions : so far
as the dramatic proportion is concerned they are
"pagans." These pagans held Spain; the duty of
France is to take it from them, because they have a
false religion. The poet needs no more than this to
write with full conviction :

" The pagans are wrong, the French are right."

Charlemagne hesitates not a moment when he has
taken Saragossa, to convert the population en bloc, in
most rudimentary fashion.

" En la cltet rfest remis paiens
Ne self Deis, ou devlen crestiens"

" In the city remained no pagan
Who was not killed, or turned Christian."

Paris notes this feeling of national destiny, the love
of la douce France, and the love of the national honour,
as the three qualities giving to the poem its "grandiose
character." But we, who have not had our literary interest
in the poem stimulated of late by the Franco-Prussian
war and the feelings of outraged patriotism attendant
thereupon, are likely to notice a certain tedious redun-
dancy, before being charmed by this " caractere
grandiose."

The poem is nevertheless quite interesting as a monu-

74 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

ment to " la nationalite frangaise." Its championship of
Christianity against Paganism makes it almost as much
of Christendom as of France : it is most certainly heroic
in outline; far more so than the Cid.

Threatened by the Franks, the Spanish king and the
Sarrasin Marsille in Saragossa sue for peace. Ganelon,
Charlemagne's ambassador, bears the reply ; but, jealous
of Roland, he arranges to betray him to the enemy for
a price. Charlemagne, told that Marsille accepts his
terms, is, in spite of warning dreams, persuaded to leave
Roland behind with the rearguard.

Marsille attacks this rearguard ; Oliver sensibly
advises Roland to sound his horn to call back the
Emperor. Roland bombastically refuses. The warrior
Bishop Turpin blesses the French, but neither Roland's
hardihood nor the sanctity of the Bishop avert the
natural result. Roland, dying, sounds the "olifan,"
and recalls the Emperor, who, by the way, is already
thirty leagues off. All the rearguard are slain. Charles
takes terrible vengeance, aided by Ogier, Geoffrey
of Anjou, and the Duke Nay me. Saragossa is
garrisoned, and the dead of Roncivaux are buried with
honour.

Aude now appears for the first and last time,
faints, and dies of grief at hearing of the death
of her betrothed Roland : Ganelon is punished :
the widow of Marsille is converted. " St Gabriel, de
la part de Dieu," comes to tell Charles to go to new
conquests ; and Charles (reversing the attitude of
Alexander) weeps in his white beard at the prospect
of carrying a crusade into Syria.

" Ah, la vaillante epopee, chevalresque et bien
frangaise ! " exclaims Leo Claretie. It is, indeed,
French, and Roland is well the hero. He is Galiffet
at Strasbourg; and we hear somewhat his echo in

GESTE AND ROMANCE 75

Cyrano's " quel geste ! '" He is splendid and absurd.
Take this, perhaps the finest passage in the poem, to
witness :

" Then Roland felt that death approached,
His brains rush out through his ears.
He prays God to receive his peers.
He confides himself to the angel Gabriel.
He takes the orifan (his horn), to be without reproach,
And his sword Durendal in the other hand.
Further than an arblast sends a quarrel bolt
He goes towards Spain, he enters a field and mounts a hillock,
Four marble rocks surround two beautiful trees,
On the green grass he falls backward.
He swoons, for death is near to him.
High are the mountains and very high are the trees.
There are four shining rocks of marble.
Upon the green grass the Count Roland swoons.
A Sarrasin had his eyes open,
Feigning death he lies among the others.
Blood reddens his body and his visage,
He rises to his feet and runs forward.
He was great, of very great bravery.
Full of pride and of mortal rage,
He seized Roland, his body and his armour,
And spoke thus : * The nephew of Charles, conquered !
This sword will I carry away into Arabic."

The Count awakes, feeling himself pulled about.
Then Roland feels that someone is drawing the sword
from him ; he opens his eyes and says :

" * By my faith ! you are not one of us.'
He holds the orifan, whereof he would not leave hold.
He smites (the Sarrasin ?) on the * cimier ' all overworked with

gold,

Despite the steel and the cap within the helmet, and the bones.
The Sarrasin's eyes burst from his head,
He falls dead at his feet.

Then he said to him, ' Gredin, how were you so hardy,
As to touch me either right or wrong ?
Whoever might hear of it would hold you for a fool.

76 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

I have split my orifan,

I have spoiled the carbuncles and the gold/ l

Then Roland felt that the life went from him.

He rises to his feet as well as he could manage it,

The colour is gone from his visage,

Before him was a brown rock ;

Ten blows he struck in grief and rage,

The steel cracked, but neither broke nor split,

And said the Count : * St Mary, aid !

Ah, good Durendal, what dolour !

I can no longer use you, but I do not neglect you !

In how many battles have I conquered with you !

And for such great lands have I battled

To give them to Charles who has the white beard,

You could never belong to a poltroon,

A bold soldier would have kept you long.

Never will there be his equal in free France.'

Roland struck upon the rock of * Sardonic/

The steel cracked, but it broke not, nor split.

When he saw that he could not break it

He commenced to lament to himself:

' O Durendal, how white you are,

To the gay sunshine you gleam, you flame ! ' '

These last two lines are certainly pure poetry.

Then he recalls his past glories, and again tries to
break the sword; he shivers the hilt, but the blade
rebounds and points heavenwards ; he prays to the
sword in vain, and death comes upon him.

" There he is lying under a pine ! the Count Roland !
He wished to turn toward Spain,
He stretches to God the glove of his right hand :
St Gabriel received it.
Then his head falls on his arm,
He is gone, hands joined, to his end.
God sent to him His angel Cherubim,
St Raphael, and St Michael of Paul.
St Gabriel is come with them,
They take the soul of the count to Paradise."

1 Landor and his violets !

GESTE AND ROMANCE 77

It is glorious ; it is utterly French. A victim, not
to the treachery of Ganelon, but to that pride which
forbade him to sound the horn for aid, he dies. Per-
fect is the pose chivalric, perfect the piety ! The hero
goes out of this Chacon of Gesture, and one feels that
perhaps he and the rest of the characters are not
wooden figures, that they are simply French. Heroic
he is, and his hands are joined, in death he forgets not
etiquette. Well is he the hero of the French.

But as one is grateful for Cervantes after Monte-
mayor, so is one grateful for the refreshment of the
Spanish Poema, and for that bandit Ruy Diaz. I
perhaps profane the Roland : the death scene is
poignant ; parts of it are natural ; all of it might
seem natural, to minds differently poised. Poetry it
has in plenty ; its stiffness may often become, or seem
to become, dignity ; but the quality of eternal youth is
not in it, as it is in the Spanish Poema, or in the old
captive's song fable, " Aucassin and Nicolette."

Whatever the " Cid " owes to the " Roland," it is an
immeasurable advance in simplicity ; it is free from the
striving for effect, as in the two trees and four white
stones of marble: it is free from any such exaggera-
tions as a horn heard at thirty leagues distance. Indeed,
the " Roland " is either too marvellous to be natural or
too historical to allure by its mystery. In the realm of
magic, the land of the "Romances," one expects, one
demands, the delight of haunted fountains, bewitched
castles, ships that move unguided to their appropriate
havens ; and the Breton cycle, the cycle of Arthur,
was already furnishing them to the mediaeval audience and
supplanting the semi-verities of the u Matter of France."

The third matter, that of "Rome le Grant," need
hardly concern us ; it is interesting chiefly in so far as
it shows us how vague were the mediasval ideas of

78 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

antiquity. The u Roland" is to be regarded as the
summit of the French cycle ; which is, except for this
poem, interesting only now and again, as in the Pro-
venc^al Geste of " Giraut of Rousillon"; more direct in
its style than the " Roland," or in such incidents as that
of the first merry-go-round, which is amusingly narrated
in the " Pelerinage de Charlemagne."

The mediaeval critic, fond of trite formula?, and of
divisions by three, says that the only fit matters for the
narrative poet to write about are : the deeds of France,
of Britain, and of Rome the Great.

Whatever we can learn from the mediaeval redaction
of the events of Greek and Roman antiquity can be
more easily learned from the beautiful illumination of an
early fifteenth century book, which has recently been
displayed in the National Gallery. It represents Ca?sar
crossing the Rubicon, he and his hosts being arrayed in
the smartest fashions of the late Middle Ages.

The literary artist objects to being bound by actual
events, and the folk cry out for marvels. Moreover,
there are ladies to be entertained ; ladies, bored some-
what by constant and lengthy descriptions of combats,
not greatly differing one from another. The songs of
more or less historical happenings go out of vogue ;
the romances — weaker sisters of the songs of deed —
gradually usurp the first place in the interest of the
general.

Of the writers of " march en," Marie de France is
perhaps the most readable. Crestien de Troyes is
the recognized master; while the one immortal tale,
the " Tristan," comes down to us in the versions of
Thomas and of Beroul.

Marie's " lais " give us the romantic tales in simpler,
shorter form. With them we return to the land of
Hear-say, with which Apuleius has made us familiar.

GESTE AND ROMANCE 79

In a preface addressed to someone called " the King,"
Marie writes thus of the reasons and purpose of her
writing :

" Wherefore 1 began to think of making some good
histories, bringing them from Latin into romance ; but
this meseemed hardly worth while, seeing so many
others were already set to it, and then I thought me of
the "lais" which I had heard. I did not doubt — nay,
I well knew — that those who first began them and sent
them forth, made them for remembrance of adventures
they had heard. Many of them I heard told, and I
would not have them forgotten. I have rimed them,
and made c dities ' of them ; many a time have I kept
vigil in doing it. ...

" In honour of you, noble king ... I have set to
gathering the Mais,' to make rimes and re-tell them."

As the translations l of these " lais " are available to
all I shall not quote them at length.

The tale of Guigemar, what befell him in Britain the
Less, opens with a formula which might well recall the
Pervigilium Veneris.

u Whereat shall marvel all who love, and have loved,
and shall love hereafter."

" Ki alment e ame avrunt
U ki puls amerunt apres"

There is a like thing at the beginning of the u Amadis
and Ydoine " to greater extent.

" Communalement vow qul aves
Ame et vous qul ore ames
Et trestult ell qul ameront,

1 By Jessie L. Weston and by Edith Rickert in Nutt's " Arthurian
Romances."

80 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

Qui esperance (Tamer ont,

Vous qu aves o'i damours

Selonc le conte des auctours

Et en latin et en romans . . ." etc.

Marie's lay is of Britain the Less ; of Guigemar, who
adventureth all things save love alone, until one day
a-hunting he sees a white hind with stag's horns. The
arrow which he shoots rebounds and wounds him.
The hind speaks, telling him that he can get no cure
save of one who shall suffer for love of him, so that it
will be a marvel to all lovers. In his distress he comes
to the sea-board, and finds a magical ship decked with
gold and ivory, which takes him oversea to the water-
gate of a tower, wherein is one prisoned by a jealous
lord, and then, naturally, the story tells of the love and
pains they bore.

The second tale is of a slanderous wife and a found-
ling hidden in an ash tree. The third is of the moun-
tain, "Cote des deux Amants," in Normandy; and of
how the lover, trying to carry his love to the top of it,
in compliance with the conditions set by her father,
dies of the strain, and she of grief.

The next is of an imprisoned lady, to whom her love
came in the form of a falcon ; and amongst the rest are
the lays of the Werewolf " Bisclavret " ; of Eiliduc and
the ladies Guildeluec and Guillodun ; of Lanval and the
fairy lady that bore him to Avalon ; of Gungeamor, who
is none other than Oisin, who goes hunting the boar, and
is met by the lady of the fountain, who leads him into a
wonderful country for three seeming days, that are three
hundred years ; after which he comes back, unbelieving,
and tells the tale to a charcoal burner, gives him the
boar's head, and is received back into the fairy country.

In the lay of " Tyolet " there is an interesting note
as to origins. Marie says :

GESTE AND ROMANCE 81

"The clerks of the court wrote out the tales in
Latin, and from Latin they were turned into Romance,
whence, as our ancestors tell us, the Bretons make
many a lay."

Of course this solves nothing : the fairies are Celtic ;
the decorative incident is now biblical, now seemingly
Ovidian ; and the tales are a delight as they stand,
which is really all that matters. They vary in length
and in antiquity ; from pre- Arthurian myths, and " lais "
that are really short romances, to idylls like that of the
" Nightingale," which might have been based on an
incident of Marie's own time.

The work of Crestien de Troyes has been lately
translated by W. W. Newell,1 and is available to all.

The tales move more swiftly than the similar tales in
Malory's " Morte d' Arthur." Crestien has a fine eye
for the colour of mediaeval pageantry and some fidelity
to nature. The tales are to-day what they were to
Dante : uThe very beautiful legends of King Arthur."
As art, they are certainly no advance on Apuleius'
" Cupid and Psyche." They belong to that vast body
of pleasant literature which one should read when one
feels younger than twenty. There are few people who
can read more than a dozen or so of mediaeval romances,
by Crestien or anyone else, without being over-wearied
by the continual recurrence of the same or similar
incidents, told in the same or a similar manner.

It is undeniable that these tales make a definite and
intentional appeal to the senses. And why not, some will
ask. Does not all art appeal to the senses ?

Great art is made, not to please, but to call forth, or
create, an ecstasy. The finer the quality of this ecstasy ,
the finer the art : only secondary art relies on its
pleasantness.

1 A. P. Watt & Sons. English Edition.

82 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

The Tristan and Ysok legend stands apart from the
other romances. The original energy and beauty of
its motif have survived even the ignoble later versions,
and have drawn to them beautiful words and beautiful
minor incidents.

The early texts of Thomas and Eeroul are reprinted
by the Societe des anciens textes fran^ais. Bedier's
reconstruction of the tale from compared texts is avail-
able both in his own French and in H. Belloc's English
translation. The tale itself is, I presume, familiar in
some form or another to everyone.

Tristran, the child of sorrow, is born after the death
of his father, Rivalen, King of Lyonesse. He is kid-
napped by merchants ; that is, while he is intent on a
game of chess aboard their ship, they sail with him to
Ireland. Later, he comes to live with his uncle, King
Mark of Cornwall. He slays the giant Morholt, who
comes from Ireland to gather tribute — the tale of the
Minotaur is somewhere in the background. He goes
to Ireland to seek a bride for King Mark ; a dragon
is slain ; he is discovered to be the slayer of Morholt.
After difficulties, he sets sail homeward with Ysolt.
They drink of the magical cup ; love's hand is upon
them, and the intrigue of the tale begins.

From here on the tale has been elaborated by divers
hands. There is discovery ; exile ; life together in the
forest of Marrois. Presumably, in some lost version,
their tragic death occurs about this time ; but later
interest demands that their adventures be prolonged.
They are found with a drawn sword between them:
they are pardoned by Mark ; restored ; discovered ;
Ysolt, tried by ordeal, is unscathed by the heated iron,
because her oath of purity is true in letter, though
misleading as to fact. Tristran is banished : his
adventures with Ysolt of the White Hands, or the

GESTE AND ROMANCE 83

second Ysolt, Ysolt of Brittany, are interpolated :
another giant slain, he returns to Cornwall disguised as
a madman. The incandescent fairy dog Pticru creeps
into the tale from some quaint Celtic source. The
shining house of crystal and rose is discovered by
someone ; and a great artist designs the death scene ;
remembering Ovid, when he tells of the ship's sails and
the fatal confusion of their colours. The Celtic origin
of the tale is almost beyond dispute. But one never
knows what strange lore came into Ireland during that
earlier period of her culture, the fifth century, when
Ireland made manuscripts for Europe.

There is a Celtic hall-mark on one of the earlier
intrigues, where Tristran sends messages to Ysolt, by
dropping marked chips of wood into a stream which
flows through her dwelling. The Celts are supposed
to be the only people whose primitive lodges were built
in such a fashion as to make this possible.

In antithesis to this great tragedy, which owes its
beauty to its theme, we find that most exquisite Picard
comedy, the " Aucassin and Nicolette," which owes its
immortal youth purely to the grace of its telling. I
use "tragedy" and " comedy" with their looser
meaning: Tristran and Ysolt are doomed from the
beginning; Fate lays their love upon them; Aucassin
the debonnair and the fair Nicolette are born under
gay stars.

" Sweet the song, the story sweet,
There is no man hearkens it,
No man living 'neath the sun
So outwearied, so foredone,
Sick and woful, worn and sad,
But is healed, but is glad
'Tis so sweet."

Andrew Lang was born in order that he might

84 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

translate it perfectly, and he has fulfilled his destiny,
bringing into his English all the gay, sunlit charm of
the original.

Turning to the other monuments of the century, we
find one monolith which nothing has been able to
modernize. I mean the "Romaunt of the Rose," which
is as much of its time and of the three succeeding
centuries as the Arthuriad is of all time.

One sees the " romances " preparing for Chaucer ;
a part of the Romaunt comes also through the quill of
" le grand translateur," as the " romances " find their
prototype in Apuleius' "Cupid and Psyche." So the
Romaunt of the Rose has Ovid's " Ars Amatoria " for
father ; yet the resemblance is much tempered by the
allegorical -Christian superstructure; by visions and
symbolical figures; sometimes like Ovid's uEnvy" of
the Metamorphoses, but usually in closer resemblance
to the abstractions of the subsequent mystery plays.

Guillaume de Loris is the springtime of the poem,
and John Clopinel of Meung its autumn. It was no
new thing, for there had been much didactic poetry;
yet no poem had such renown as came to this long-
winded, metrical rumination about all things under
heaven.

It is gone, gone utterly, so far as its readableness is
concerned. Youth attempts it once or twice: the
philologist might remain suspended, if the language
offered him were ground for controversy. Like Perse-
polis, and the valiant cities of old, there yet remains a
breath of romance in the name, but the site offers little.
It has been a great book, the book of Europe for
three centuries ; it is now a hunting-ground for the
intrepidly curious. It has a most interesting " literary
position," if one choose to regard it as an unconscious,
or semi-conscious, and abortive attempt to do what

GESTE AND ROMANCE 85

Dante did triumphantly in the " Commedia " — that is,
to " catch the age in a net." This point of view,
however, gives the Romaunt of the Rose a somewhat
exaggerated importance, as neither Loris nor Clopinel
seriously attempted to portray humanity. Loris is a
pleasant rhymer and Clopinel a tedious theorist. The
poem is, nevertheless, interesting to anyone who is
studying the progress of the art of narrative.

The narrative objective art precedes the narrative
subjective. We have had short poems of emotion and
expressions of personal feeling : we have had the tales,
but with the Romaunt of the Rose we come to a third
thing. [The Rose is not the first, but the best
example for our purpose.] Striving for something to
relieve the shallowness of the objective romances, we
get the allegory, a sort of extension of the fable. The
mediaeval author is not yet able to shed himself in
completely self-conscious characters ; to make a mood ;
slough it off very much as a snake does his skin, and
then endow it with an individual life of its own. In
the romances he has told of actions and speech and has
generalized about the emotions. In the allegory he
learns to separate himself, not yet from complete moods,
but from simple qualities and passions, and to visualize
them. Thus: Idleness, Jealousy, Youth, Nobility of
heart, are called into being by a sort of Platonic
idealism.

The treatment of these long u prose di romanzi"
may seem unsympathetic ; but I feel fully convinced
that most interest in them is archaeological rather than
artistic, and that the people who can enjoy them
are the exception ; barring, of course, the Cid, the
Tristan, the Aucassin and Nicolette, and such other
poems, or parts of poems, as are needful to satisfy the
lay curiosity concerning the literary manner and atmos-

86 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

phere of the time. The modern vogue for them began
with William Morris, and passed the zenith when he
wrote " Love is Enough." For a more charitable and
scholarly account of these poems I would refer to the
chapter on France in Dr W. P. Ker's "Epic and
Romance."

CHAPTER V

LA DOLCE LINGUA TOSCANA

" // milk cento trentacinque nato
Fo queslo tempio, a Zorzi consecrate
Fo Nicolau scolptore
E Glielmofo t'autore"

[Cut over the arch of the great altar in the Cathedral Church
of Ferrara.]

WHILE Lorris and Clopinel were compiling their
encyclopedia of what passed for wisdom, the tradition
of Provence was being continued in Tuscany.

The Albigensian crusade, a sordid robbery cloaking
itself in religious pretence, had ended the gal savoir in
southern France. The art of the Troubadours meets
with philosophy at Bologna and a new era of lyric
poetry is began.

Perhaps the most notable poem of the transition is
the Sicilian Ciullo d'Alcamo's

" Fresca rosa aulentissima"

to be found translated in D. G. Rossetti's " Early
Italian Poets."

The poetry of St Francis of Assisi stands somewhat
apart from the line of secular development. Some
knowledge of this sort of poetry is necessary if one
wishes to understand the period or to appreciate fully
certain passages in the " Divina Commedia ; " as is also
some acquaintance with that vast amount of prose con-
cerning the lives of saints. The most beautiful work
of this sort is, of course, "The Fioretti of St Francis."

87

88 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

Of its hero's compositions, the finest is the " Cantico
del Sole," wherein that "little sheep of God" speaks
to the glory of the Father Eternal in a free unrhymed
verse with a rhythm mighty as the words and well
accompanying them :

" Most high Signer,
Yours are the praises,
The glory and the honours,
And to you alone must be accorded
All graciousness ; and no man there is
Who is worthy to name you.
Be praised, O God, and be exalted,
My Lord, of all creatures,
And in especial of the most high Sun
Which is your creature, O Lord, that makes clear
The day and illumines it,
Whence by its fairness and its splendour
It is become thy face ;

And of the white moon (be praised, O Lord)
And of the wandering stars,
Created by you in the heaven
So brilliant and so fair.
Praised be my Signer, by the flame
Whereby night groweth illumined
In the midst of its darkness,
For it is resplendent,
Is joyous, fair, eager ; is mighty.
Praised be my Signor, of the air,
Of the winds, of the clear sky,
And of the cloudy, praised
Of all seasons whereby
Live all these creatures
Of lower order.
Praised be my Lord
By our sister the water,
Element meetest for man,
Humble and chaste in its clearness.
Praised be the Lord by our mother
The Earth that sustaineth,
That feeds, that produceth

LA DOLCE LINGUA TOSCANA 89

Multitudinous grasses

And flowers and fruitage.

Praised be my Signor, by those

Who grant pardons through his love,

Enduring their travail in patience

And their infirmity with joy of the spirit.

Praised be my Signor by death corporal

Whence escapeth not any one living.

Woe to those that die in mutual transgression

And blessed are they who shall

Find in death's hour thy grace that doth come

From obedience unto thy holy will,

Wherethrough they shall never see

The pain of the death eternal.

Praise and give grace to my Lord,

Be grateful and serve him

In humbleness e'en as ye owe.

Praise Jiim all creatures ! "

The text given in Paul Sabatier's " Vie de S. Fran-
cois d'Assise " reads u brother sun," u sister moon and
the stars," "brother wind," " brother fire." This, of
course, accords with the practice in " The Fioretti " ;
but the rhythm in Sabatier's text seems to me much
less impassioned than that in the one I have translated,
also its greater length is against its being the earlier
version.

For myself, u blanca luna " and " vaghe stelle" seem
equally poetical ; but personal preference aside, the
shorter, simpler form, the more vigorous, ecstatic
rhythm, the version conforming less to the mannerisms
of "The Fioretti," seems more probably to be the work
of Francis himself. Rhythm is the hardest quality of
a man's style to counterfeit, and here one should com-
pare the rhythm of the different versions of The Cantico
del Sole to that of other franciscan poems, remembering
that St Francis' rhythm is always influenced by the drone
of the church services.

90 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

The first Italian who can be said to have advanced
the art of poetry is Guido Guinicelli of Bologna, the
" Maximus Guido" of Dante's Latin works. So far
as I can discern from available texts, he it was who first
discovered that a certain form of canzone stanza is
complete in itself. This form of stanza, standing alone,
we now call the " sonnet." If Guido did not invent
this form, he is, at least, the first who brought it to
perfection. He also introduced into romance poetry
that new style wherein the eyes and the heart and the
soul have separate voices of their own, and converse
together. It is true that he deliberates — overmuch
for poetical purposes — on the state of man in this life
and the next, but this must be forgiven him, seeing that
he it was who opened new paths at a time when imita-
tion of Provence was over-servile.

Provence had had much paganism, unacknowledged,
some heresy * openly proclaimed, and a good deal of
conventional piety. Unquestioning they had worshipped
Amor and the more orthodox divinities, God, Christ,
and the Virgin. From Amor or his self-constituted
deputies they had received a code of laws. To God
and his saints they had prayed incuriously.

The Tuscan bookworms suddenly find themselves in
the groves of philosophy, God becomes interesting, and
speculation, with open eyes and a rather didactic voice,
is boon companion to the bard.

Thought, which in Provence had confined itself to
the manner, now makes conquest of the matter of verse.

1 Jos. McCabe's " Life of Abelard " will give a fair idea of what
the term heresy might mean in the Middle Ages. It is a most
interesting account of this poet, whose love poems have perished.
Abelard, as we know him, is the knight-errant of learning. He gave
up his inheritance for study, as Daniel left learning to become a
jongleur.

LA DOLCE LINGUA TOSCANA 91

Abandon hope all ye who enter upon any extended
study of this period without some smattering of scholastic
philosophy. Hell we have had in Pindar and Virgil ;
heaven, somewhat, in Plato; but the Tuscan poets
gambol through the complicated Aquinean universe
with an inconsequent preciseness which bewilders one
accustomed to nothing more complex than modern
civilization.

Guinicelli escapes from labyrinthine circumplications
in the famed and beautiful canzone which Rossetti has
translated :

" Within the gentle heart Love shelters him,
As birds within the green shade of the grove.
Before the gentle heart, in Nature's scheme
Love was not, nor the gentle heart ere Love.

^ The fire of Love comes to the gentle heart
Like as its virtue to a precious stone ;
To which no star its influence can impart
Till it is made a pure thing by the sun."

[For complete translation see the "Early Italian
Poets/']

Rossetti has not translated this sonnet beginning :

" Veduf ho la lucente stella dtana"

" I have seen the shining star of the dawn
Appearing ere the day doth yield its whiteness.
It hath taken upon itself the form of a human face,
Above all else meseems it giveth splendour.
A face of snow, colour of the ivy-berry,
The eyes are brilliant, gay, and full of love,
And I do not believe that there is a Christian maid in the world
So full of fairness or so valorous.

92 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

Yea, I am so assailed of her worth,

With such cruel battling of sighs,

That I am not hardy to return before her ;

Thus may she have cognisance of my desires :

That without speaking, I would be her servitor

For naught save the pity that she might have of mine anguish."

Here the preciseness of the description denotes, I
think, a clarity of imaginative vision. In more sophisti-
cated poetry an epithet would suffice, the picture would
be suggested. The dawn would be " rosy-fingered " or
"in russet clad." The Tuscan poetry is, however, of a
time when the seeing of visions was considered respect-
able, and the poet takes delight in definite portrayal of
his vision. The use of epithet is an advance on this
method only when it suggests a vision not less clear,
and its danger is obvious. In Milton or Swinburne, for
example, it is too often merely a high-sounding word
and not a swift symbol of vanished beauty. My use of
"valorous" is archaic and perhaps unpardonable, but
the orthodox word "worthy" has no aroma.

Rossetti gives the following sonnet, but it would take
several translations and some comment to exhaust the
beauty of the original :

" Io vo del ver la mia donna hdare"

The octave :

" I wish with truth to speak my Lady's praise,
And liken her to rose and gilly flower,
More than the dawn star's grace her splendour is.
The green stream's marge is like her, and the air,
And all her colours are yellow flowers and red.
Gold and silver and rich joys become more rarified,
Yea, Love himself meseems refined through her."

In this connection one must remember that alchemy
and mystical philosophy interpenetrate each other, and
that feminine names were used as charms or equations

LA DOLCE LINGUA TOSCANA 93

in alchemy. Here the word " rqffina " recalls a similar
line in Arnaut Daniel. .

The sestet :

" She goes her way adorned so graciously
That pride forsakes whom she doth grace with greeting.
Yea, he betrays our faith who creeds her not.
No man impure may venture near to her.
Yet would I tell you of a greater worth :

There is no man whose evil thoughts do not cease a little while
before she appears."

Rossetti renders the last line beautifully :

" No man could think base thoughts who looked on her."

But finche la vede seems to imply that her spiritual
influence would reach somewhat beyond her visible
presence.

The distinction may seem over-precise, but it is in
the spirit of this period to be precise. It is to be
remembered also that Rossetti is substituting poetry in
one language for poetry in another, while the trans-
lations in this book are merely exegetic.

The following passage from one of Guinicelli's
canzoni serves to illustrate how the Tuscan grammatical
structure differs from the Provengal. The bracketed
words are not in the original.

" For Lo ! the star which measureth our time
Is like that lady who hath lit my love.
Placed in Love's heaven she is,
And as that other (star) by countenance
From day to day illumineth the world
So doth she (illumine] the hearts
Of gracious folk and all the valorous,
With but the light which resteth in her face ;
And each man honours her
Seeing in her the light all perfected

94 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

Which bears full virtue to the minds

Of all, who (thereby} grow enamoured,

And such is that one who coloureth

The heaven with light, being guide of the true-hearted

With a splendour which lures by its fairness/'

The directness of Provengal song has here been lost.
The complicated system of introactive relative clauses
could only have been set down by a man accustomed
not so much to hear poetry as to read it, one would say,
in Latin.

The subject matter of these passages from the ode
beginning : —

"Avvegna ched eo m* aggio plu per tempo"

forebodes the "dolce stile" (the u the sweet style") of
Dante.

" Although long time I had cried out
Un'vailingly for pity and for love
Wherewith to comfort this our grievous life,
My time's not yet outrun,

Thus, sith my speech yet findeth not thy heart,
I stand a-weeping with my wounded soul,
Saying together : * Thus was it cast in heaven.'

' O blessed joy whereon man calleth ever,

Qime ! and when and how

Shall come my power to see thee visibly ?

So that in this present hour I might make you aid of comfort.

Therefore hear me, for my speech pertaineth,

And give rest to my love-wrought sighs.

Yea, we do prove that in this blinded world
Each one hath life of anguish and of grief,
Fortune bedraggling man through all mischance
Ere he win heaven wherein is perfect joy."

The Fifth Stanza:

" Reflect upon the pleasure, then, where dwelleth
Thy Lady who is crowned in heaven,
In whom doth rest your hope of Paradise ;

LA DOLCE LINGUA TOSCANA 95

(Reflect} with your every holy memory

Contemplating a soul set in heaven,

Your heart, which is hereby bewildered,

Hath painted within it this so blessed face,

Whose semblance below is as the miracle above,

(Hath painted within if) even more, since it is known how she

was received by the angels ;
This your spirits have reported, (spirifs) who many a time

make the voyage."

(I have thought it necessary to insert in brackets the
subjects of some of the relative pronouns.)
(Coda)—

" She speaks of you with the blessed,
And says to them : ' while I was in the world
I received honour from him,

In so much as he praised me in his songs of praise.'
And she prays to God, the true Signor,
That he comfort you, as shall please you." 1

This passage shows us two things : it shows us that
certain conceits of Dante's earlier poetry were by no
means original; and it shows us the dangers of
the philosophical love song.

Apropos of this sort of thing, Bonagiunta of Lucca
writes to Guinicelli of Bologna :

"You that have changed the manner and the
pleasing songs of love, both form and substance, to
surpass every other Troubadour . . . you surpass
every man in subtlety ; but so obscure is your speech,
that there is none found to explain it."

I would further refer you to the "Early Italian
Poets " for the translation of " Tegno di folk impresa,
allo ver dire" ("I hold him verily of mean emprise"),
mentioned by Dante, " De Vulgari Eloquentia," ii. 5,

1 Rossetti attributes this to Cina da Pistoija, and is probably right ;
in which case the quotation illustrates only one of my points.

96 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

and for one vivid simile to the sonnet, "Concerning
Lucy."

In Guinicelli we find the root of the "curial style.'7
His contemporaries may for the most part be regarded
as a continuation of the Provencal decadence, or as
channels wherethrough the Provencal manner was
borne into Italy. Following Guinicelli come three
men who brought the canzone to perfection ; they are
Guido Cavalcanti (born 1250), Dante Alighieri (b.
1265), and Cino da Pistoija (b. 1270). With them
must be named Fazio degli Uberti, author of the long,
didactic, geographical " Dittatiomundi," and whose
glorious ode,

" Io miro i cresp'i e gli blondl capegli"

has been at times attributed to Dante, and printed in
his u Canzonieri." Uberti was born half a century
later.

Concerning the lesser lights of the period, Rossetti
has written sufficiently in the " Early Italian Poets,"
noting the keen satire of Rustico di Filippo, Folgore's
sonnets on the days and months, the poems of Lappo
Gianni, and of other personal friends of Dante ;
likewise the sonnets of that scurrilous Cecco Angioleri
of Siena, chief scoffer, and opponent of the courtly
school ; he gives also translations from Jacopo, " The
Notary " of Lentino, Guittone, Bonaggiunta, and Guido
delle Colonne, all of whom we find mentioned by Dante
either in his prose or in the uCommedia." The pro-
gress of the art after Guinicelli can, however, be
sufficiently traced through the works of Cavalcanti,
Cino, and Dante.

Cino is best seen in his canzone, " Of Consolation :
To Dante upon the Death of Beatrice," and in the
lament for Selvaggia, beginning

LA DOLCE LINGUA TOSCANA 97

" The beautiful bright hair
That shed reflected gold
O'er the green growths on either side the way."

Both poems are given in Rossetti.

The haughty and impetuous senior of the trio, Guido
Cavalcanti, was Cino's enemy, and was friend, and later,
enemy, of Dante.

Dante himself never wrote lines more poignant, or
more intensely poetic than did this Cavalcanti. The
single line is, it is true, an insufficient test of a man's
art, but it is a perfect test of his natural vigour, and
of his poetic nature.

In all poetry of the emotions I know nothing finer than
those lines of Cavalcanti which Rossetti has rendered :

" When with other women I behold my Love —
Not that the rest were women to mine eyes
Who only as her shadows seemed to move."

His poignancy is seen in such lines as :

" Not even enough of virtue with me stays
To understand, ah me !
The flower of her exceeding purity."

A spirit more imperious and less subtle than Dante,
more passionate, less likely to give ear to sophistries ;
his literary relation to Dante is not unlike Marlowe's
to Shakespear, though such comparisons are always
unsafe. No man has written better ballate, and his
individuality is unquestionable ; Rossetti has translated
the proof of this in the "Ballata, written in Exile at
Sarzana," which begins in the translation :

" Because I think not ever to return,
Ballad, to Tuscany, —
Go therefore thou for me

Straight to my lady's face,

Who, of her noble grace,
Shall show thee courtesy."

98 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

And more proof is in that sonnet where he says :

" They worship thy face, Lady, at San Michele in Orto
. . . where it is a refuge and comfort to sinners."

And in the canzone to Fortune, where the rhythm
turns as the wheel of her who saith:

" Io son la donna che volgo la ruota
Sono colei, che tolgo e da stato
Ed e sempre biasmato
A torto el modo mlo da vol mortali"

" I am the woman who turneth the wheel,
I am who giveth and taketh away.
And I am blamed alway
And wrongly, for my deeds, by ye, mankind."

How beautiful is Rossetti's ending for this stanza
(Fortune speaking):

" Nor say because he fell I did him wrong,
Yet mine is a vain song,
For truly ye may find out wisdom when
King Arthur's resting-place is found of men."

After a few hours with the originals, criticism
becomes a vain thing. One says with Milton,

" Questo e lingua dl qui si vanta amore" *•
and makes an end,

" Who is she coming whom all gaze upon,
Who makes the whole air tremulous with light ? "

" Chi e questa, che men ctt ogni uom la mira
E fa dl clartta Paer tremare ? "

Cavalcanti's words of his Lady are well applicable to
the song of his time :

" E mena seco Amor, siche parlare
Nuir uom ne puote, ma ciascun sospira"

1 " This is the language whereof Love's self makes boast."

LA DOLCE LINGUA TOSCANA 99

" And leadeth with her love so no man hath
Power of speech, but each one sigheth."

It was the great age of the canzone as the age of
Shakespear was the great age of the romantic drama.

Both Dante and Shakespear were men "born in their
due time."

And at this time, this age of the canzone, was the
poetry of Christendom made perfect.

The following unimportant sonnet, 33rd in Dante's
uCanzonieri," will perhaps show how this time set a
fashion of poetic speech that has since pertained with
scant variance.

" Io maleduo II dl . . . "

" I curse the day wherein I first saw the light of your
eyes traitorous. That moment's self is cursed wherein
you mounted first the summit of my heart to draw thence
out the soul. I curse the amorous file that hath polished
my fair speeches, and the fair colours that I have
found through you, and set in rhyme to bring it
to pass that the world shall henceforth for ever
honour you.

And I curse my hard mind that is firm to hold what
kills me, that is, your fair culpable face wherethrough
Love often perjures him, so that each one, who thinks
that Fortune turns the wheel, makes mock of Love and

me."

The debt of the English Elizabethan poets to the
writers of this period has never been carefully com-
puted. It is, I think, greater than is usually supposed.
How "Elizabethan," for instance, is this sonnet from
Guido Orlandi to Guido Cavalcanti :

" Whence moveth love and whence hath he his birth,
What is his proper stead, wherein he dwelleth,

ioo THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

And is he substance, accident or memory,

A chance of eyes, or a desire of heart ?

And whence proceeds his madness or his state ;

Is he a flame that goes devouring

Or doth he nourish ? I demand you now :

How, when and of whom maketh he him lord ?

What thing is Love, I ask, hath he a face,

Hath he a form by self, or others' likeness ?

Is this love life, or is he death in truth ?

He who doth serve him, should so know his nature.

I ask thee, Guide, this concerning him

Since thou art called * accustomed ' at his court ? "

I have, in some small measure, pointed out Dante's
debt to Guinicelli, a debt which he openly proclaimed.

Dante's greater poetry rises above the age, not
because it is, line for line, better, or more essentially
poetic, than the best of Guinicelli's or of Cavalcanti's
verses, but because of the lofty, austere spirit moving
behind the verse. That spirit shows itself in the first
tangled canzone of the "Convito"; an ode, I think,
which shows all the faults and all the fineness of the time.
Obscure it is surely, at first reading ; but when the sense
and form are once comprehended its beauty is a beauty
that never tires one. Time after time can one return
to it, and always one's hunger for the beautiful is
satisfied.

The Italian forms are not, as certain writers have
stated, a simplification of the Provencal forms. The
rhyming has, it is true, been made easier, but the
structure of the stanza is usually more complex. This
particular canzone conforms to the rules laid down in
" De Vulgari Eloquentia." The single stanza consists
of three parts, the second of which must repeat the
rhymes of the first ; the third part is free. The lines
may be of eleven and of seven syllables. In this canzone
only eleven-syllable lines are used.

LA DOLCE LINGUA TOSCANA 101

The number of stanzas is optional. The " coda " or
"envoi" preferably repeats some part of the stanza
form.

In the later Provengal forms the stanzas were usually,
though not always, more simple than this, and the
rhymes of the first stanza were usually retained through-
out the poem ; thus each succeeding stanza was an echo
not only of the order but of the terminal sounds of the
first.

An effect of one of Arnaut Daniel's canzones
is that of a chord struck repeatedly in crescendo. The
sound-beauty of the Italian canzone depends on the
variation of the rhymes.

The Provencal canzone can be understood when
sung. I know of but few Tuscan canzone that do
not require close study in print before they will yield
their meaning. But after one knows the meaning,
their exquisite sound spoken, or sung, is most enjoy-
able. Even so, they are much less songs than their
predecessors.

The following canzone is explained at length in the
" Convito."

It tells how Dante is led forth from his personal
grief for the death of Beatrice into the sunlight of
Philosophy ; that is, becomes fit for his life work,
because of a deepened vision. It is addressed to the
spirits, who, by understanding, rule the third heaven —
the heaven of Love — because they alone will fully com-
prehend it. The speakers in the poem are : A spirit,
descending on the rays of Venus, the star ruling the
third heaven ; a thought that goes from Dante to heaven
and returns telling him of Beatrice, the " anglola " (little
angel), who in heaven is crowned; the " spirit el" or
breath of noble love : and other speakers who are
sufficiently explained in the text.

102 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

" Canzone Prima " from " // Convito "

" Ye moving spirits of the third high sphere,
Hear ye this speech as in my heart it is !
Too strange it is to speak, save unto you.
That heaven which followeth your potencies
(O creatures noble as ye do appear)
Doth form the mood which I am drawn unto,
Wherefore this speech of life which I pass through,
Meseems directed toward you worthily.
And therefore do I pray ye give me heed
While my heart speaks that which is new indeed,
Of how, within, my soul weeps piteously
Because a spirit borne upon the rays
Of your high star, my soul in speech withstays.

The life of my sad heart was wont to be

A gracious thought which many a time went thence

To take his place beside thy Sire's feet,

Where looked he on her gloried countenance,

Of whom he spoke to me so graciously,

That my soul cried : * My going hence is meet.'

And now comes one who drives him in defeat,

And lords it over me with such high power

That my heart's trembling is made manifest.

To make me look on her, this is his quest,

Who saith, ' Whoso would win salvation's dower,

Unto this lady let him turn his eyes,

If he may strip his fear of fearful sighs.

The humble thought which wont to speak to me

Of a little angel who in heaven is crowned,

Finds here a foe, who him destroyeth straight ;

And weeping saith my soul, in this grief bound,

' Alas ! that now that piteous one doth flee

Who gave me comforting until so late ! '

And of mine eyes he saith, disconsolate,

' Oime ! what hour, wherein they saw her first !

Why trusted they not me concerning her ?

I ever said, within her eyes doth stir

A power whereby my peers to death are cursed.

What was my warning more than wasted breath,

They would not turn from her, from whom's my death ? '

LA DOLCE LINGUA TOSCANA 103

' Thou art not dead, thou only art dismayed,

O soul of ours, who makest here such moan.'

A breath of noble love replies to this,

' For this fair lady who is here made known

Hath on thy life such transmutation laid

That fear comes on thee and strange cowardice.

How humble and how pitiful she is,

And in her grandure wise and courteous !

Behold, and know, and name her " Mistress " ever.

And hence, unless thy mind from sense him sever,

Thou shalt see glories, high, so marvelous,

That thou shalt cry, " Love, Lord in verity,

Behold thine handmaid ! Do what pleaseth thee ! " ' "

" Canzon, I think that they shall be but few,
Who shall draw forth thy meaning rightfully,
So wearisome and tangled is thy speech,
Whence, if such fortune falleth unto thee,
That pathways of thy going shall lie through
Minds unto whom thy meaning can not reach,
Take thou such comfort as I here can teach :
Greet them, my New Delight, with this address,
t Give heed at least unto my loveliness.' "

" Ponete mente almen com' to son bella"

The cult of Provence had been a cult of the
emotions; and with it there had been some, hardly
conscious, study of emotional psychology. In Tuscany
the cult is a cult of the harmonies of the mind. If one
is in sympathy with this form of objective imagination
and this quality of vision, there is no poetry which has
such enduring, such, if I may say so, indestructible charm.

The best poetry of this time appeals by its truth,
by its subtlty, and by its refined exactness. Noffo
Bonaguida thus expresses himself and the peculiar
introspective tendency of his time :

" Ispirito d* Amor con intelletto
Dentro dallo meo cor sempre dimora,
Chi mi mantiene In gran giola in dlletto
E senza lui non viveria un1 ora."

104 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

Our whole appreciation of the time depends on
whether we understand what is meant by the peculiar
terms: thus in the above passage whether we mis-
translate " intelletto " as " intellect," or render it correctly
" intelligence," thus :

" A spirit of love with intelligence
Dwells ever within my heart,
He doth maintain me in joy and great delight,
Without him I should die within the hour."

Faults this poetry may have ; we have already
mentioned them at too great length ; this virtue it ever
has, it is not rhetorical, it aims to be what it is, and
never pretends to be something which it is not.

Seeking, in the works of the centuries immediately
preceding him, those elements which Dante's mag-
nanimity has welded into the aCommedia," we find much
of his philosophy or theology in the church fathers.
Richard of St Victor had written a prose which becomes
poetry, not because of its floridity, but because of its
intensity.

The technique of accented poetry had been brought
to perfection by Daniel, Guinicelli, and Cavalcanti.

In Rustico di Filippo we find proof that the bitter
acid of Italian speech was not first distilled by the
Florentine.

Lorris, Clopinel, and Brunetto Latini had already
attempted long poems which were not romances or
narratives of deed. St Francis had poured fourth his
religious fervour in the tongue of the people. The
means are prepared.

Advenit Magister.

CHAPTER VI

IL MAESTRO

IGNORANCE of most of the data of Dante's life is no
bar to the understanding of his works.

The life itself is, however, most interesting, and
Paget Toynbee has in his short " Life of Dante " set
down the main facts with such fluent conciseness, that
the information conveyed greatly exceeds the labour of
reading.

I have recommended few subsidiary works. I believe
that in the study of literature one should read texts,
not commentaries. I recommend the first 157 pages
of this book * as a biographical introduction to Dante's
"Commedia."

Toynbee follows the sane custom of quoting contem-
porary authorities ; Villari, etc., at reasonable length.

In outline the facts are these :

Dante was born in Florence in 1265: his father,
Guelph, j udge and notary. [Toynbee's characterisation
of Dante's father is, I think, drawn mainly from Mr
Toynbee's imagination, without any real warrant in
facts ; however, the point is of no consequence ; our
enjoyment of the "Commedia" does not depend on
Alighiero degli Alighieri's views on Vendetta.]
Dante's mother was of Ghibelline family. The
Ghibelline party, ruined in the year of Dante's birth,
stood in theory for alaw, authority, the empire, and
the older aristocracy " ; the Guelph party for the
citizens, the Church, liberty, and Italy.

1 Paget Toynbee, " Life of Dante." Methuen & Co.

105

106 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

The " Vita Nuova," the prose of which was written
between 1292-95, is Dante's own account of his
youth's inner life, and we have Boccaccio and Dante's
own son to witness that it tells of Dante's love for
Beatrice Portinari.

On June n, 1289, Dante fought at Campaldino,
" in the front rank," " no child in arms " ; possibly
among u the 150 of the best of the host," chosen by
Aimeri of Narbonne and the other Florentine captains.
The battle was between the Guelphs of Florence and
the Ghibellines, who had for some years been centred
at Arezzo. Dante saw further military service. In
1295-6 he enrolled himself in the Guild of Physicians
and Apothecaries, which Guild was concerned with
the trade with the Orient, spices, drugs, pearls, jewels,
books, and the art of painting.

By 1298 he was married to Gemma Donati; in
1300 he was elected to the priority of Florence, then
torn by the Black and White factions of the Guelph
party. For the peace of the city he exiled the leaders
of both factions ; among them his friend, Guido Caval-
canti, who was shortly recalled, but died of a fever
contracted in exile.

In 1301, when Pope Boniface attempted to interfere
in the civic affairs of Florence, Dante and certain others
were sent as ambassadors to Rome. During their
absence the party of the Black Guelphs (headed by
the relations of Dante's wife) admitted into Florence
Charles of Valois, the Pope's instrument. The Whites
were treacherously driven out, and a decree of exile
passed against Dante and others.

The rest of Dante's life was passed in exile, with the
Scaligers, the Malespini, and other noble families. He
wandered through most of the cities of Italy ; perhaps
even to Paris or Oxford.

IL MAESTRO 107

He was engaged much of the time in intriguing for
the recall to Florence, which never came to him. His
last hope of it was extinguished by the death of the
Emperor Henry VII. in 1313, two years after he had
assumed the iron crown of Milan and threatened
Florence. The rest of Dante's life was passed in
writing and in missions for his friends, such as the
embassy to Venice for Guido da Polenta, whereon he
caught his death fever in 1321.

Toynbee's book, to which I have referred, is all the
more remarkable for giving a lucid account of the party
feuds in Florence : his account of Farinata degli Uberti
is better than the notes on Farinata in most editions of
the " Commedia."

As for Dante's art, which is really what concerns us,
we find him with a finished technique at twenty : pre-
suming the second and fourth sonnets of the "Vita
Nuova " to have been written about that time ; and it
is in this ivory book of his youth that one should first
come to know him. It opens thus :

i

"In that part of the book of my memory, before
which little can be read, is found a rubric, which saith,
c Beginneth the New Life.' Under the which rubric I
find written the words which it is my intent to copy
into this book, if not all, at least their meaning.

ii

"The heaven of light had revolved nine times in
its orbit since my birth, when first appeared unto mine
eyes the glorious lady of my mind, who was called
Beatrice by many who did not really understand what
they called her" (i.e. Beatrice, the blessed one)."

io8 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

In this fashion he begins the tale of Love the revealer,
of Love the door and the way into the intelligence, of
Love infinite

" That moves the sun and all the other stars."

The narration is simple, without glare of incident ;
the sight of Beatrice, the child, in a crimson mantle;
the sight of Beatrice, the lady, in white ; a greeting
given smilingly, a greeting withheld ; the death of a
friend they had in common; the death of Folco
Portinari, with presage of gloom impending, since the
passing of these dim personalities in some sort fore-
shadows the death of Beatrice herself. We find not
the action itself, but the action reflected in the lake of
Dante's heart; the heart, as we find it first, of one
diffident, sensitive, bookish somewhat, a knower of
dreams rather than a mingler among men. He is a master
of frail harmonies almost from the beginning, in witness
the second sonnet and the fourth : sonnets by an older
definition and more beautiful in form than the quatorzain.
The second begins :

" O voi che per la via d? Amor passate"
" O ye that pass along love's way."

And the fourth :

" Morte villana, di pleta nemlca,
Di dolor madre antica,
Giudizto Incontrastablle^ gravoso,
PoicW hal data materla al cor doglioso,
Qn# to vado pensoso,
Di te biasmar la lingua s' affatica"

Which beginning Rossetti renders :

" Death, alway cruel, Pity's foe in chief,
Mother who brought forth grief,

IL MAESTRO 109

Merciless judgment and without appeal !
Since thou alone hast made my heart to feel
This sadness and unweal,
My tongue upbraideth thee without relief."

Even Rossetti is unable to continue in the strict rime
scheme of the original. Perhaps the first flawless
sonnet of the " Vita Nuova" is the fifth:

" Cavalcando Faltr'ier per un camino"

(to be found in Rossetti's translation of "The New
Life ").

From this point onward the tale is of visions, and of
Love's lordship over the singer, until with the death of
Beatrice comes the final refinement of the song.

Of his griefs before that time and after it, I would
rather you read from the full text. The " Vita Nuova "
is not a thing to be pulled apart and illustrated by
selections. There are some thirty pages of it : songs
and a quaint prose forming a sort of extended razzo,
or explanation of the songs and their causes.

One can cast no spell with disconnected bars of a
Chopin nocturne. The "Vita Nuova," frail, delicate in
its brief extent, would suffer too much from a like
dissolution. The atmosphere, so much its own, so little
belonging to anything but itself, is too much desecrated
by a pulling awry of the matter. The whole must be
given to those to whom Dante addresses the first
canzone, that is to those

" cK avete intelletto e? amore."
(" who have intelligence of love.")

In the tenth and eleventh sonnets we find that he
has been reading Maximus Guido. The tenth begins :

" Love and the noble heart are both one thing ;
E'en thus the sage in his * dittato ' saith."

no THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

It is a philosophizing little sonnet of the older school.
The eleventh also stands in accord with the tradition,
and having little individuality, suffers little by being
taken apart from the context.

" Within her eyes my Lady beareth Love,
So making noble all she looketh on.

Where she doth pass, straight turneth everyone toward her ;
Her greeting putteth a trembling on the heart,
So that a man doth lower his shaken visage
And sigheth for every fault he hath,
And pride and anger flee before her.
Aid me then, ladies, in her honouring !

All sweetness, every humble thought

Is born within the heart of whoever hears her speak ;

Whence is he blest who first doth look on her ;

What thing she is when she doth faintly smile,

Can not be said nor even held in mind,

So new and noble a miracle it is."

The slight though striking similarity of the eleventh
line to the first line of a poem of Sappho's, translated
by Catullus, is perhaps mere accident ; but the sequent
similarity of thoughts is interesting.

The vision of Love and the flaming heart ; of love in
the guise of a pilgrim, and of the little cloud, cannot
be separated from the whole. One tires of Browning's
verses on the drawing of angel (in " One Word More ").
Dante's prose of it (" V. N." xxxv.) may be rendered
as follows :

"In that day, fulfilling the year wherein this lady
was made citizen of the life eternal, I was sitting in a
place, wherein remembering her, I was designing an
angel upon certain tablets, and while I was at the
drawing I turned my eyes and saw beside me men
whom it was befitting to honour. They watched what
I was making, and afterwards it was told me that they

IL MAESTRO 1 1 1

had been there some while without my being aware of
it. Seeing them, I arose and said to them in greeting :
4 Another was with me, whence my thought.'

" When they were gone, I turned to my work, that
is, the drawing of an angel's face, and doing this there
came to me the thought of setting certain words in
rime, as for annual of her. Then spoke I the sonnet,
'-Era Venuta.*"

It is nothing short of crime to break the second and
third canzoni, but the following passages must needs
send anyone who reads them to the complete text.

Canzone II

" A very pitiful lady, very young,
Exceeding rich in human sympathies,
Stood by what time I clamoured upon death,
And at the wild words wandering on my tongue,
And at the piteous look within mine eyes,
She was affrighted, . . ."

(Of the visions of that troubled sleep of his, the
later stanza) :

"Then saw I many broken hinted sights,
In the uncertain state I stepped into
Me seemed to be I know not in what place,
Where ladies through the streets, like mournful lights,
Ran with loose hair, and eyes that frighten'd you
By their own terror, and a pale amaze :
The while, little by little, as I thought,
The sun ceased, and the stars began to gather,
And each wept at the other ;
And birds dropp'd in mid-flight out of the sky ;
And earth shook suddenly ;
And I was 'ware of one, hoarse and tired out,
Who ask'd of me : * Hast thou not heard it said ? . . .
Thy lady, she that was so fair, is dead.' "

H2 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

The third canzone mourns likewise :

" That she hath gone to Heaven suddenly,
And hath left love below to mourn with me.

Beatrice is gone up into high Heaven,

The kingdom where the angels are at peace :

And lives with them ; and to her friends is dead.

Not by the frost of winter was she driven

Away, like others ; nor by summer heats ;

But through a perfect gentleness, instead.

For from the lamp of her meek lowlihead

Such an exceeding glory went up hence

That it woke wonder in the Eternal Sire,

Until a sweet desire

Enter'd Him for that lovely excellence,

So that He bade her to Himself aspire ;

Counting this weary and most evil place

Unworthy of a thing so full of grace."

The conclusion of the " Vita Nuova," which is also
the prologue to the " Commedia," runs thus (Rossettis
Version) :

" About this time, it happened that a great number
of persons undertook a pilgrimage, to the end that
they might behold that blessed portraiture bequeathed
unto us by our Lord Jesus Christ as the image of his
beautiful countenance (upon which countenance my dear
lady now looketh continually). And certain among
these pilgrims, who seemed very thoughtful, passed
by a path which is well-nigh in the midst of the
city where my most gracious lady was born, and abode,
and at last died.

"Then I, beholding them, said within myself: These
pilgrims seem to be come from very far ; and I think
they can not have heard speak of this lady, or known
anything concerning her. Their thoughts are not of

IL MAESTRO 113

her, but of other things ; it may be, of their friends
who are far distant, and whom we, in our turn, know
not. . . . And when the last of them had gone by
me, I bethought me to write a sonnet, showing forth
mine inward speech. . . . And I wrote this sonnet :

" Ye pilgrim folk advancing pensively
As if in thought of distant things, I pray,
Is your own land indeed so far away
As by your aspect it would seem to be, —
That nothing of our grief comes over ye
Though passing through the mournful town midway ;
Like unto men that understand to-day
Nothing at all of her great misery ?
Yet if ye will but stay, whom I accost,
And listen to my words a little space,
At going ye shall mourn with a loud voice.
It is her Beatrice that she hath lost ;
Of whom the least word spoken holds such grace
That men weep hearing it, and have no choice."

" And I ... resolved that I would write also a new
thing, . . . therefore I made this sonnet, which
narrates my condition, . . .

" Beyond the sphere which spreads to widest space
Now soars the sigh that my heart sends above :
A new perception born of grieving love
Guideth it upward through the untrodden ways.
When it hath reach'd the end, and stays,
It sees a lady round whom splendours move
In homage ; till, by the great light thereof
Abash'd, the pilgrim spirit stands at gaze.
It sees her such, that when it tells me this
Which it hath seen, I understand it not,
It hath a speech so subtle and so fine,
And yet I know its voice within my thought
Often remembereth me of Beatrice :
So that I understand it, ladies mine."

n4 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

" After writing this sonnet, it was given unto me to
behold a very wonderful vision ; wherein I saw things
which determined me that I would say nothing further
of this most blessed one, until such time as I could
discourse more worthily concerning her. And to this
end I labour all I can, as she well knoweth. Where-
fore if it be His pleasure through whom is the life of
all things, that my life continue with me a few years,
it is my hope that I shall yet write concerning her what
hath not before been written of any woman. After the
which, may it seem good unto Him who is the Master
of Grace, that my spirit should go hence to behold the
glory of its lady, to wit, of that blessed Beatrice who
now gazeth continually on His countenance qui est per
omnla sacula benedictus. Laus Deo."

Thus ends the ivory book, the " little maid " he sent
to Ser Brunette.

Saving the grace of a greatly honoured scholar, to speak
of the "Vita Nuova" as "embroidered with conceits"
is arrant nonsense. The " Vita Nuova " is strangely un-
adorned ; more especially is this evident if it be com-
pared with work of its own date. It is without strange,
strained similes.

Anyone who has in any degree the faculty of vision
will know that the so-called personifications are real
and not artificial. Dante's precision both in the " Vita
Nuova " and in the " Commedia " comes from the attempt
to reproduce exactly the thing which has been clearly
seen. The u Lord of terrible aspect " is no abstraction,
no figure of speech. There are some who can not or
will not understand these things. For such let Dante's
own words suffice. They are to be found in one of
those passages of explanation which must have seemed
to the author so prolix, so unnecessary. Thus :

IL MAESTRO 115

" Nevertheless, he who is not of wit sufficient to
understand it (Canzone prima) by these (explantions)
which have already been made, is welcome to leave it
alone."

That the " Vita Nuova " is the idealization of a real
woman can be doubted by no one who has, even in the
least degree, that sort of intelligence whereby it was
written, or who has known in any degree the passion
whereof it treats.

Out of the wonderful vision mentioned in the last
passage quoted sprang the " Commedia " ; and it is to this
passage that Cino da Pistoija refers in that sonnet
ending,

" Sing on till thou redeem thy plighted word,"

a sonnet probably written after " The Inferno " had been
begun, and sent to the exiled Dante, who had ceased
from his making.

COMMEDIA.

The " Commedia," as Dante has explained in the
Epistle to Can Grande, is written in four senses : the
literal, the allegorical, the anagogical, and the ethical.
For this form of arcana we find the best parallel in the
expressions of mathematics. Thus, when our mathe-
matical understanding is able to see that one general
law governs such a series of equations as 3x3 + 4x4
= 5 x 5, or written more simply, f + 42 = 52, 62 + 82 =
io2, i22+i62 = 2o2, etc., one expresses the common
relation algebraically thus, a2 + ft = c2. When one has
learned common and analytical geometry, one under-
stands that this relation, a2 x b2 = c2, exists between two
sides of the right angle triangle and its hypotenuse,
and that likewise in analytics it gives the equation

n6 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

for the points forming the circumference of any
circle. Thus to the trained mathematician the cryptic
a2 + b* = c2 expresses :

ist. A series of abstract numbers in a certain relation
to each other.

ind. A relation between certain abstract numbers.

yd. The relative dimensions of a figure ; in this case
a triangle.

^th. The idea or ideal of the circle.

Thus the "Commedia" is, in the literal sense, a descrip-
tion of Dante's vision of a journey through the realms
inhabited by the spirits of men after death ; in a
further sense it is the journey of Dante's intelligence
through the states of mind wherein dwell all sorts and
conditions of men before death ; beyond this, Dante or
Dante's intelligence may come to mean u Everyman" or
u Mankind," whereat his journey becomes a symbol of
mankind's struggle upward out of ignorance into the
clear light of philosophy. In the second sense I give
here, the journey is Dante's own mental and spiritual
development. In a fourth sense, the " Commedia " is an
expression of the laws of eternal justice; u/7 contra-
passo" the counterpass, as Bertran calls it ("Inf." xxiv.),
or the law of Karma, if we are to use an Oriental
term.

Every great work of art owes its greatness to some
such complexity. Thus " Hamlet " is a great play, not
because it narrates the misventures of a certain intro-
spective young prince of Denmark, but because every
man reading it finds something of himself in Hamlet.
The play is also an enunciation to the effect that a
man's thoughts or dreams

" Come between him and the deed of his hand,
Come between him and the hope of his heart."

IL MAESTRO 117

There is little doubt that Dante conceived the real
Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise as states, and not places.
Richard St Victor had, somewhile before, voiced this
belief, and it is, moreover, a part of the esoteric and
mystic dogma. For the purposes of art and popular
religion it is more convenient to deal with such matters
objectively ; this also was most natural in an age wherein
it was the poetic convention to personify abstractions,
thoughts, and the spirits of the eyes and senses, and
indeed nearly everything that could be regarded as
an object, an essence, or a quality. It is therefore
expedient in reading the " Commedia " to regard Dante's
descriptions of the actions and conditions of the shades as
descriptions of men's mental states in life, in which they
are, after deathr compelled to continue : that is to say,
men's inner selves stand visibly before the eyes of
Dante's intellect, which is guided by classic learning,
mystic theology, and the beneficent powers.

The journey of the vision begins in a thick forest
midway along life's road, whence Dante, in fear of
certain symbolical beasts, is led by Virgil through and
out of Hell, and to the summit of Purgatory, where
another guide awaits to accompany him out through
the concentric spheres of the heavens into unbounded
heaven above them.

One hears far too much about Dante's Hell, and far
too little about the poetry of the "Purgatorio" and
" Paradiso " ; though Dante has warned his readers in
the ninth line of the first canto, that the Hell is but
the prelude :

"But to tell of the good which I found, I will speak
also of the other things."

Ma per tr attar del ben cK'io vi trovai,
Dlro dell* altre cose ctiio v'ho scorte"

n8 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

In the construction of the great symphony the first
movement is sombre, only to make the last by contrast
more luminous.

Guided by Virgil, Dante begins his descent into the
conical pit, through ever-narrowing circles, and air ever
more black and more tempestuous.

Hell is the state of man dominated by his passions ;
who has lost " the good of the intelligence " — " che
hanno perduto il ben del intelleto."

First we come beneath the starless air to those
dreary ones that lacked energy to sin or to do good ;
neither fit for hell nor heaven.

Next, to the ferry of Charon, where, " as the leaves
of autumn fall one after one until the bough sees
all its pageantry upon the earth, even so the evil seed
of Adam cast themselves from the shore," into the
barge of the red-eyed Charon.

Across the u livid marsh " Dante is taken in a swoon,
into the place, " not sad with torments, but with
shadows only," and here he meets the four other
great poets, as his time knew them — Sovran Homer,
Horace the satirist, Ovid and Lucan, who greet him
and return with him and Virgil into the noble castle,
"to the meadows of fresh verdure." It is the Hellenic
Elysium, and in his description of it, Dante, I think,
displays a certain quality of calm power, usually denied
to all authors save the Greek.

, Drawing to one side, " into a place, open, luminous,
and high," whence he could see all these uwith slow
eyes and grave, and of great authority in their sem-
blance, speaking seldom, and with quiet (soave) voices " :
great spirits whom he gloried within him to have seen :
u Elektra, Hector and Aeneas, and Csesar with his
falcon eyes ; Penthesilea, and Brutus, that drove forth
Tarquin ; Camilla and Martia," and " by himself apart,"

IL MAESTRO 119

the Saladin; and higher, "the master of those that
know,"1 holding his Olympian Court with Plato and
Socrates, Thales, and the rest.

Then the four poets leave Dante alone with Virgil,
and "out from the calm air" they move "into the
air which trembleth," "to a place where nothing
shineth."

Minos, "knower of sins," reigns over it, and judges.
In the "dolorous hospice," "where all light is mute,
there is a bellowing as of the sea in tempest, of a
storm that never rests." Whirling and smiting, the
infernal wind beats here upon the spirits of those who
were ruled by their own passions; and as cranes go
chanting their lays in a line long drawn through the
air, so come these wailing ghosts.

" Ombre portate della detta briga"
" As shadows borne upon th' aforesaid strife."

And here (Canto v.) Francesca da Rimini, one of the
pair "that seemed so light upon the wind," " E paion si
al vento esser leggier i" " as one that speaks and
weepeth," tells her tale of how there, "where the Po
descendeth to be at peace with his attendant streams,"
"Love that the noble heart doth quickly learn, had
joined her to one who leaves her never."

From the miraculous fifth canto the vision leads into
new torments, through the circles of the gluttonous, and
the avaricious, and the prodigal ; to the wrathful and the
sullen, buried in the ooze of their sullenness. Over
their pool Dante and Virgil come to the city of
Dis, livid, with walls of seeming iron; place of the
fallen angels, basso inferno ; place of the blood-stained
Erynnis, girt with greenest hydras, coifed with serpents
and cerastes. The prasfects of the city refuse to open

1 Aristotle.

120 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

to the poets, but their " fatal going " (fatal andare) is
not to be impeded.

"And now there came, upon the turbid waves, a crash of
fearful sound, at which the shores both trembled ;

a sound as of a wind, impetuous for the adverse heats,
which smites the forest without any stay ;

shatters off the boughs, beats down, and sweeps away ;
dusty in front, it goes superb, and makes the wild
beasts and the shepherds flee.

He loosed my eyes, and said : ' Now turn thy nerve of
vision on that ancient foam, there where the smoke
is harshest.'

As frogs, before their enemy the serpent, run all
asunder through the water, till each squats upon
the bottom :

so I saw more than a thousand ruined spirits flee before
one, who passed the Stygian ferry with soles unwet."

("Inf.," Canto ix. 64-82.)

The poets enter the city of Dis, of which Dante
writes (Canto ix. 106-133):

" We entered into it without any strife ; and I, who
was desirous to behold the condition which such a
fortress encloses,

as soon as I was in, sent my eyes around ; and saw, on
either hand, a spacious plain full of sorrow and of
evil torment.

As at Aries, where the Rhone pools itself, as at Pola
near the Quarnaro gulf, which shuts up Italy and
bathes its confines,

the sepulchres make all the place uneven : so did they
here on every side, only the manner here was more
bitter :

IL MAESTRO 121

for amongst the tombs were scattered flames, whereby
they were made all over so glowing-hot, that iron
more so no craft requires.

Their covers were all raised up ; and out of them pro-
ceeded moans so grievous, that they seemed indeed
the moans of spirits sad and wounded.

And I : : Master, what are these people who, buried
within those chests, make themselves heard by their
painful sighs ? '

And he to me : ' [Here] are the Arch-heretics with their
followers of every sect ; and much more, than thou
think est, the tombs are laden.

Like with like is buried here ; and the monuments are
more and less hot.' Then, after turning to the right
hand, we passed between the tortures and the high
battlements."

Out of one of these fiery coffers there arises the
most imperious figure of the uCommedia": Farinata
degli Uberti, agnostic, he who, after the battle of
Arbia, had saved the city of Florence from destruction
at the hands of the Ghibelline Council, after their
victory. Here he says: "But I was the sole one there
who, when all consented to destroy Florence, defended
her with open face."

Scornful, as if " he held hell in great disdain,"

" Come avesse lo inferno in gran dispitto"

he rises from his torture to a combat of wits with his
political enemy.

Past him and his tomb-mate, Guido Cavalcantis'
father, our poets descend to the thicker stench of that
part of hell reserved for the violent against themselves,
against God, and against their neighbours; for bias-

122 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

phemers against God, and despisers of nature's bounty :
for the practisers of fraud against those who have had,
and against those who have not had confidence in them ;
until at the narrow base of hell we find Judas, Brutus,
and Cassius eternally embedded in the ice, which is the
symbol of the treacherous heart.

The terrible pageant rolling on beneath the reek of the
lurid air, over rivers of blood, guarded by monsters from
the classic mythology, is, in its conscious symbolism, the
mediaeval world, blind with its ignorance, its violence,
and its filth.

Browning is perhaps the only widely read modern
who has realized this phase of the Middle Ages, and
he has hidden his knowledge in an unread poem,
" Sordello."

The vigour of Browning's touch approaches the
Florentine's in one passage at least, of Cino at the
fountain, in the poem "Sordello":

" 'A sort of Guelf folk gazed
And laughed apart ; Cino disliked their air —
Must pluck up spirit, show he does not care —
Seats himself on the tank's edge — will begin
To hum, za, za, Cavaler Ecclin —
A silence ; he gets warmer, clinks to chime,
Now both feet plough the ground, deeper each time,
At last, za, za, and up with a fierce kick
Comes his own mother's face, caught by the thick
Grey hair about his spur ! '

Which means, they lift
The covering, Salinguerra made a shift
To stretch upon the truth ; as well avoid
Further disclosures ; leave them thus employed."

Piere Cardinal's fable of the same man in the city
gone mad is a weaker equation for what Dante pre-
sents as a living man amongst the dead.

I have followed convention in noting Farinata ; under

IL MAESTRO 123

the rain of dilated flakes of fire we find Caponseus, a
like figure, unrelenting in his defiance of the supreme
power (Canto xiv. 50) :

" What I was living that am I dead
Though Jove outweary his smith."

In Canto xv. we find Brunetto Latini still anxious
for the literary immortality of his " Tesoro."

Canto xvii. opens with this description of Geryon,
symbol of fraud :

" Ecco lafiera con la coda aguzza
Che passa i monfi, e rompe muri e farmi"

" 4 Behold the wild brute with sharpened tail that
passeth mountains and breaks walls and arms. Behold
the one that fouleth all the world.' Thus began my
guide to speak to me, and beckoned to the beast to
come to shore, near to the end of the rocky defile.
And that uncleanly image of fraud came on, and landed
with head and breast. But drew not its tail upon
the bank. The face was the face of a just man, so
benign was the outer skin ; and the rest was all a
serpent's body. Two paws had he hairy to the arm-
pits ; the back and the breast and both the flanks he
had mottled with knobs and circlets.

44 Never did Tartars or Turks weave cloth with more
colours and broidery, nor were such webs laid by
Arachne.

44 As at times wherries lie ashore, that are part in
\vater and part on land ; and as there amongst the
guzzling Germans (Tedeschi lurchi\ the beaver adjusts
himself to wage his war : so lay that worst of savage
beasts upon the brim."

Upon this beast they descend into the lower pit,
Malebolge, which contains the violent against art, and

i24 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

the usurers. In this Canto we find the " unearned
increment " attacked.

The vividness of Dante's description of the descent
on the back of the monster may be judged from
these lines :

" He goes swimming slowly, slowly, wheels and
descends ; but I perceive it not, save by a wind upon
my face and from below."

Malebolge is a series of concentric pits, the whole
shaped somewhat like a half-opened telescope. Through
the " Inferno "there is a biting satire on the aimless turmoil
and restlessness of humanity, beginning with the motion
of the wind which bears Paolo and Francesca, con-
tinuing through the portrayal of the devil-driven
pandars in Malebolge, only at the very root of hell do
we find the end of it, in the still malignity of the
traitor's wallow.

Canto xix. is devoted to the simonists ; here Dante
finds Nicholas III., to whom :

" O whoe'er thou art that hast thy upper part under-
most, wretched spirit, planted like a stake," I began,
" if thou art able, speak ! "

I stood like a friar who is confessing a perfidious
assassin, who, after being planted, is thus recalled, and
has his death delayed.

And he cried out : " Art thou already standing,
Boniface? (i.e. Pope Boniface VIII.). Art thou
already on end, Boniface ? The script has lied to
me by several years."

Dante also anticipates the descent of Clement V. to
the same department, and inveighs against simony.
There is a similar boldness shown by Guido Reni in
his picture of St Michael and the devil, where the
devil's face is that of the Pope. In the further lines

IL MAESTRO 125

(121-124) \ve have hidden much of the spirit of the
renaissance. Dante here represents intelligence and
truth, and Virgil the honesty of pagan philosophy ; at
the end of Dante's invective he says of Virgil :

" I believe, indeed, that it pleased my guide, with
such contented lips did he attend to the sound of the
words truly spoken."

It is said that Rabelais hid his wisdom in a mass of
filth in order that it might be acceptable to his age ;
how much better a hiding is this of Dante's, who,
with the approval of pagan enlightenment, rebukes the
corruption of the church temporal, not in such a manner
as to stir up the rabble, but so that it will be perceptible
to the thoughtful.

There is a fine bit of stoic philosophy in the next
Canto (xx.), when Dante weeps in pity for the
sorcerers and diviners. Virgil says to him :

"Art thou, too, like the other fools? Here liveth
pity when it is well dead. Who is more impious than
he who sorrows at divine judgment? "

Those punished here have their heads set on back-
wards, or in Dante's terse phrase :

"made breasts of their shoulders because they wished
to see too far before them."

Dante's love of beauty draws it after him into hell
itself, so here, with skill, he relieves the gloom of the
canto by retrospection (lines 46-51).

"That is Aruns, who hath his belly behind him, he
who, in the mountains of Luni, where hoes the Carrarese
who dwells below, had his grotto amidst the white
marbles and dwelt therein, and thence with unobstructed
sight looked forth upon the stars and on the sea."

In the next cantos are scourged sins and the cities

126 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

noted for them. Thus the barrators are " the elders
of San Zita" (patron saint of Lucca). In xxi. 7-18,
is this simile so apt in its suggestion, of things marine.

uAs in the Venetians' arsenal boils the sticky pitch,
for the caulking of damaged keels unnavigable, in which,
to save rebuilding, they plug the ribs so that they hold
for many a voyage ; while some hammer at the prow,
some at the stern ; some make oars, others twine ropes,
and mend the jib or mainsail, so, not by fire but by
divine means, there is boiled down there a thick tar
which glues the bank in every place."

Here are the barrators, the simile may seem over-
long, but it also conveys that air of unrest, here the
racket of the ship-yard.

There is grim humour through these canti. Bologna
is gibed for Pandars, as Lucca for Barrators. Through
it all moves Dante (a more impersonal figure than he is
usually accounted), with his clear perception of evil and
of pompous stupidity; and his skill in giving "relief"
from the mood of the " Inferno," once as by the memory
of Aruns' cave, next by the clearly comic touch of
the infernal corporal, lord over four under-devils, who
is the equivalent of the operatic " super " with a spear.

We lose a great deal if we leave our sense of irony
behind us when we enter the dolorous ports of Dante's
uHell." For sheer dreariness one reads Henry James,
not the "Inferno."

In the circle below the barrators go the hypocrites
clothed in great gilded mantles which are lined
with lead; they go the u painted people" weighed
down with splendid appearances ; Caiaphas and Fra
Catalano.

Canto xxiv. opens with the long simile of the
peasant coming to his door.

IL MAESTRO 127

" When the hoar-frost paints her white sister's image
on the ground."

This canto is of the thieves tormented by serpents,
and Dante's sting is for Pistoija.

In xxvi. Florence is under the lash :

ly Fiorenza, pot che set s\ grande
che per mare e per terra battl fall
e per F inferno il tuo nome si spande"

" Exult, O Florence, that art grown so grand,
that over sea and land dost beat thy wings,
e'en through th' inferno doth thy name expand."

Then, as the peasant who at the sun's hiding sees
his valley filled with fire-flies, so Dante, looking down
across this ^bolge" this hell-ditch, sees approaching that
multitude of flames which involves each one, one evil
councillor.

The punishment of the sowers of discord I have men-
tioned in the paragraphs on Bertrans de Born. Below
them are the rebellious giants, and lastly the traitors in the
circle of ice, and with them the u emperor of the dolorous
realm " tri-faced, the very core of hell. Clambering
over his shaggy bulk, Dante and Virgil enter the
camino ascoso, the hidden road, and by this ascent issue
forth to see again the stars.

" e quindi usciamo a riveder le stelle"

PURGATORIO, i. I -2 1.

To course o'er better waters now hoists sail the little
bark of my wit, leaving behind her so cruel a sea.

And I will sing of that second realm, where the human
spirit is purged, and becomes worthy to ascend to
Heaven.

128 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

But here let dead poesy arise again, O holy muses, since
yours am I ; and here let Calliope arise somewhat,

accompanying my song with that strain whose stroke
the wretched Pies felt so that they despaired of
pardon.

The sweet colour of oriental sapphire which was gather-
ing on the serene aspect of the pure air even to
the first circle,

to mine eyes restored delight, as soon as I issued forth

from the dead air, which had afflicted eyes and

heart.
The fair planet which hearteneth to love was making

the whole East to laugh, veiling the Fishes that

were in her train.

So opens the second great division of the "Commedia."
Cato challenges their progress, then follows the descrip-
tion of the angelic steersman (ii. 10-45).

We were alongside the ocean yet, like folk who ponder

o'er their road, who in heart do go and in body

stay;
and, as on the approach of morn, through the dense

mists Mars burns red, low in the West o'er the

ocean-floor ;

such to me appeared — so may I see it again ! — a light
coming o'er the sea so swiftly, that no flight is
equal to its motion ;

from which, when I had a while withdrawn mine eyes

to question my Leader, I saw it brighter and

larger grown.
Then on each side of it appeared to me something

white ; and from beneath it, little by little, another

whiteness came forth.

IL MAESTRO 129

My Master yet did speak no word, until the first white-
ness appeared as wings ; then, when well he knew
the pilot,

he cried: " Bend, bend thy knees; behold the Angel
of God : fold thy hands : henceforth shalt thou
see such ministers.

Look how he scorns all human instruments, so that oar
he wills not, nor other sail than his wings, between
shores so distant.

See how he has them heavenward turned, plying the
air with eternal plumes, that are not moulted like
mortal feathers."

Then as more and more towards us came the bird
divine, brighter yet he appeared, wherefore mine
eye endured him not near :

but I bent it down, and he came on to the shore with
a vessel so swift and light that the waters nowise
drew it in.

On the stern stood the celestial pilot, such, that blessed-
ness seemed writ upon him, and more than a
hundred spirits sat within.

Among the souls is Casella, musician of Florence,
who explains how the souls are conveyed to the Holy
Mount, from that " shore where the Tiber's waves turn
salt," he sings for memory's sake, creating yet another
memory. "Amor che nella mente mi ragiona" ; the
Dantescan ode for which presumably, in the time of
their early friendship, he had made the " Son" or tune.

Ascending the hard way, Manfred is met among the
excommunicate ; Belacqua among the late repentant,
and among the late repentant violently slain, Buonconte
and others; beyond them is the valley of Princes,

130 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

where is found Sordello, the day ends : " Te lucis
ante " is sung : Two angels descend (" Purg." viii.
28-30).

" Green, as tender leaves just born, was their raiment,
which they trailed behind, fanned and smitten by green
wings."

Sordello continues his explanation of the place, and
the ante-purgatory, Canto ix., brings us to the gate of
Purgatory proper. The seven terraces for the purgation
of Pride, Envy, Anger, Sloth, Avarice and Prodigality,
Gluttony and , Lust are guarded at their entrances by
the angels of the antithetic virtues ; above them is the
earthly Paradise.

It is possible that the figures in the "Purgatorio" are
less vigorous than those in the "Inferno," and that Dante,
in this middle realm, permits himself too much luxury
of explanation. For the mystic, the uParadiso" over-
whelms it. For the lover of poetry, however, the last
six canti, describing the Earthly Paradise, make the
second book not the least of the three. I do not wish
to slight the preceding canti, but they are over-
shadowed by the magnificence of a conclusion which
it is almost impossible to convey, except by quoting
in full.

Canto xxviii.

Now eager to search within and around the divine
forest dense and verdant, which to mine eyes was
tempering the new day,

without waiting more I left the mountain-side, crossing
the plain with lingering step, over the ground
which gives forth fragrance on every side.

A sweet air, itself invariable, was striking on my
brow with no greater force than a gentle wind,

IL MAESTRO 131

before which the branches, responsively trembling, were
all bending towards that quarter, where the holy
mount casts its first shadow :

yet not so far bent aside from their erect state, that
the little birds in the tops ceased to practise their
every art ;

but, singing, with full gladness they welcomed the first
breezes within the leaves, which were murmuring
the burden to their songs ;

even such as from bough to bough is gathered through
the pine wood on Chiassi's shore, when Aeolus
looses Sirocco forth.

Already my slow steps had carried me on so far within
the ancient wood, that I could not see whence I
had entered ;

and lo, a stream took from me further passage which,
toward the left with its little waves, bent the grass
which sprang forth on its bank.

All the waters which here are purest, would seem to
have some mixture in them, compared with that,
which hideth nought ;

albeit full darkly it flows beneath the everlasting shade,
which never lets sun, nor moon, beam there.

With feet I halted and with mine eyes did pass beyond
the rivulet, to gaze upon the great diversity of
the tender blossoms ;

and there to me appeared, even as on a sudden some-
thing appears which, through amazement, sets all
other thought astray,

a lady solitary, who went along singing, and culling
flower after flower, wherewith all her path was
painted.

132 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

" Pray, fair lady, who at love's beams dost warm thee,
if I may believe outward looks, which are wont to
be a witness of the heart,

may it please thee to draw forward," said I to her,
"towards this stream, so far that I may understand
what thou singest.

Thou makest me to remember, where and what Pros-
erpine was in the time her mother lost her, and
she the spring."

As a lady who is dancing turns her round with feet
close to the ground and to each other, and hardly
putteth foot before foot,

she turned toward me upon the red and upon the
yellow flowerets, not otherwise than a virgin that
droppeth her modest eyes ;

and made my prayer satisfied, drawing so near that the
sweet sound reached me with its meaning.

Soon as she was there, where the grass is already
bathed by the waves of the fair river, she vouch-
safed to raise her eyes to me.

I do not believe that so bright a light shone forth under
the eyelids of Venus, pierced by her son, against
all his wont.

She smiled from the right bank opposite, gathering
more flowers with her hands, which the high land
bears without seed.

Three paces the river kept us distant ; but Hellespont,
where Xerxes crossed, to this day a curb to all
human pride,

endured not more hatred from Leander for its turbulent
waves 'twixt Sestos and Abydos, than that did
from me, because it opened not then.

IL MAESTRO 133

" New-comers are ye," she began, " and perchance,
because I am smiling in this place, chosen for nest
of the human race,

some doubt doth hold you marvelling ; but the psalm
Delectasti giveth light which may clear the mist
from your understanding.

And thou, who art in front, and didst entreat me, say
if aught else thou wouldst hear : for I came ready
to all thy questioning till thou be satisfied."

uThe water," quoth I, "and the woodland murmuring
drive in upon me new faith concerning a thing
which I have heard contrary to this."

Wherefore she : "I will tell from what cause that
arises which makes thee marvel, and I will purge
away the mist that offends thee.

The highest Good, who himself alone doth please, made
man good and for goodness, and gave this place to
him as an earnest of eternal peace.

Through his default, small time he sojourned here ;
through his default, for tears and sweat he ex-
changed honest laughter and sweet play.

In order that the storms, which the exhalations of the
water and of the earth cause below it, and which
follow so far as they can after the heat,

should do no hurt to man, this mount rose thus far
towards heaven, and stands clear of them from
where it is locked.

Now since the whole of the air revolves in a circle

with the primal motion, unless its circuit is broken

in some direction,
such motion strikes on this eminence, which is all free

in the pure air, and makes the wood to sound

because it is dense ;

134 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

and the smitten plant has such power that with its
virtue it impregnates the air, which in its revolu-
tion then scatters it abroad :

and the other land, according as it is worthy of itself
and of its climate, conceives and brings forth divers
trees of divers virtues.

Were this understood, it would not then seem a marvel
yonder, when some plant takes root there without
manifest seed.

And thou must know that the holy plain where thou
art, is full of every seed, and bears fruit in it
which yonder is not plucked.

The water which thou seest wells not from a spring
that is fed by moisture which cold condenses, like
a river that gains and loses volume,

but issues from a fount, constant and sure, which regains
by God's will, so much as it pours forth freely on
either side.

On this side it descends with a virtue which takes from
men the memory of sin ; on the other it restores
the memory of every good deed.

On this side Lethe, as on the other Eunoe, 'tis called,
and works not except first it is tasted on this side
and on that.

This exceedeth all other savours ; and albeit thy thirst may
be full sated, even tho' I reveal no more to thee.

I will give thee yet a corollary as a grace ; nor do I
think that my words will be less precious to thee
if they extend beyond my promise to thee.

They who in olden times sang of the golden age and
its happy state, perchance dreamed in Parnassus of
this place.

IL MAESTRO 135

Here the root of man's race was innocent ; here spring
is everlasting, and every kind of fruit ; this is the
nectar whereof each one tells.

Then did I turn me right back to my poets,1 and saw
that with smiles they had heard the last interpre-
tation ; then to the fair Lady I turned my face.

Canto xxix.

At the end of her words, singing like an enamoured lady>
she continued : " Beati^ quorum tecta tunt ftccata.

And, as nymphs who used to wend alone through the
woodland shades, one desiring to see, another to
flee the sun,

she then advanced against the stream, walking on the
bank, and I abreast of her, little step answering
with little step.

Not a hundred were her steps with mine, when both
banks alike made a bend, in such wise that I
turned me to the east.

Nor yet was our way thus very far, when the lady
turned her full round to me, saying, " Brother
mine, look and hearken."

And lo, a sudden brightness flooded on all sides the
great forest, such that it set me in doubt if 'twere
lightring.

But since lightning ceases even as it cometh, and that
enduring, brighter and brighter shone, in my mind
I said : " What thing is this ? "

And a sweet melody ran through the luminous air;
wherefore righteous zeal made me reprove Eve's
daring,

1 Statius has joined Virgil and Dante.

136 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

who, there where heaven and earth obeyed, a woman
alone and but then formed, did not bear to remain
under any veil.

under which, if she had been devout, I should have

tasted those ineffable joys ere this, and for a

longer time.
While I was going amid so many first-fruits of the

eternal pleasance, all enrapt and still yearning for

more joys,

the air in front of us under the green boughs, became

even as a flaming fire to us, and the sweet sound

was heard as a chant.
O holy, holy, Virgins, if e'er for you I have endured

fastings, cold, or vigils, occasion spurs me to crave

my reward.

Now 'tis meet that Helicon for me stream forth and

Urania aid me with her choir to set in verse things

hard to conceive.
A little farther on, a delusive semblance of seven trees

of gold was caused by the long space that was yet

between us and them ;
but when I had drawn so nigh to them that the general

similitude of things, which deceives the senses, lost

not by distance any of its features,

the faculty which prepares material for reason distin-
guished them as candlesticks, even as they were,
and in the words of the chant, " Hosannah."

Above, the fair pageant was flaming forth, brighter far

than the moon in clear midnight sky in her mid

month.
Full of wonderment I turned me to the good Virgil,

and he answered me with a face not less charged

with amazement.

IL MAESTRO 137

Then I turned my countenance back to the sublime
things, which moved towards us so slowly, that
they would be vanquished by new-wedded brides.

The lady cried to me: " Wherefore art thou so ardent
only for the vision of these bright lights, and
heedest not that which comes after them ? "

Then I beheld people, clad in white, following as after
their leaders ; and whiteness so pure here never
was with us.

Bright shone the water on my left flank, and reflected to
me my left side, if I gazed therein, even as a mirror.

When I was so placed on my bank that the river alone
kept me distant, to see better I gave halt to my
steps,

and I saw the flames advance, leaving the air behind
them painted, and of trailing pennants they had
the semblance ;

so that the air above remained streaked with seven
bands, all those colours whereof the sun makes
his bow, and Delia her girdle.

These banners streamed to the rearward far beyond my
sight, and as I might judge, the outermost were
ten paces apart.

Beneath so fair a sky, as I describe, came four and
twenty elders, two by two, crowned with flower-
de-luce.

All were singing : " Blessed thou among the daughters
of Adam, and blessed to all eternity be thy
beauties."

When the flowers and the other tender herbs opposite
to me on the other bank, were free from those
chosen people,

138 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

even as star follows star in the heavens, four creatures

came after them, each one crowned with green

leaves.
Every one was plumed with six wings, the plumes full

of eyes ; and the eyes of Argus, were they living,

would be such.
To describe their form, reader, I spill no more rhymes ;

for other charges bind me so, that herein I cannot

be lavish.
But read Ezekiel, who depicts them as he saw them

coming from the cold region, with whirlwind, with

cloud, and with fire ;

and as thou shalt find them in his pages, such were they
here, save that in the pinions John is with me, and
differs from him.

The space within the four of them contained a car
triumphal, upon two wheels, which came drawn at
the neck of a grifon.

And he stretched upwards one wing and the other,
between the middle and the three and three bands,
so that he did hurt to none by cleaving.

So high they rose that they were not seen ; his members
had he of gold, so far as he was a bird, and the
others white mingled with vermilion.

Not Africanus, nor in sooth, Augustus, e'er rejoiced
Rome with a car so fair as this, and that of the
sun would be poor beside it,

that of the sun which straying was consumed at the
devout prayer of the earth, when Jove was mysteri-
ously just.

Three ladies came dancing in a round by the right
wheel ; one so red that hardly would she be noted
in the fire ;

IL MAESTRO ito

the next was as if her flesh and bone had been
the third seemed new fallen

and now seemed they led by the white, now by the red,
and from the song of her the others took measure
slow and quick.

By the left wheel, four dad in purple, made festival,
foDowing the lead of one of them, who had three
eyes in her head.

After all die group described, I saw two aged men,
unlike in raiment, but like in bearing, and venerable
and grave:

one showed him to be of the familiars of that highest
Hippocrates vhom luliue made for the creatures
she holds most dear ;

the other showed the contrary cue, with a sword
guttering and sharp, such that on this side die

Then saw I four of lowly semblance ; and behind all
an old man solitary, coming in a trance, with visage

And these seven were arrayed as the first company;
but of lilies around their heads no garland had
they,

rather of roses and of other red flowers; one who
viewed from a short distance would have 4Ntr<Aik
that all were aflame above the eyes.

And when die car was opposite to me, a thunder dap-
was heard; and those worthy folk seemed to have
d*eir further march forbidden, and baked there
with, die first

140 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

Canto xxx.

When the wain of the first heaven which setting nor
rising never knew, nor veil of other mist than of
sin,

and which made there each one aware of his duty, even
as the lower wain guides him who turns the helm
to come into port,

had stopped still, the people of truth, who had first
come between the grifon and it, turned them to
the car as to their peace ;

and one of them as if sent from heaven u Veni sponsa de
Libano " did shout thrice in song, and all the others
after him.

As the saints at the last trump shall rise ready each
one from his tomb, with re-clad voice singing
Halleluiah,

such on the divine chariot rose up a hundred ad vocem
tanti senis, ministers and messengers of life eternal.

All were saying : " Benedictus qui venis " ; and, strew-
ing flowers above and around, " Manlbus o date
lllla plenis"

Ere now have I seen, at dawn of day, the eastern part
all rosy red, and the rest of heaven adorned with
fair clear sky.

and the face of the sun rise shadowed, so that by the
tempering of the mists the eye long time endured
him:

So within a cloud of flowers, which rose from the
angelic hands and fell down again within and
without,

olive-crowned over a white veil, a lady appeared to me,
clad under a green mantle, with hue of living flame.

IL MAESTRO 141

And my spirit, that now so long a time had passed,
since, trembling in her presence, it had been
broken down with awe,

without having further knowledge by mine eyes, through
hidden virtue which went out from her, felt the
mighty power of ancient love.

Soon as on my sight the lofty virtue smote, which already
had pierced me ere I was out of my boyhood,

I turned me to the left with the trust with which the
little child runs to his mother when he is frightened
or when he is afflicted,

to say to Virgil: "Less than a drachm of blood is left
in me that trembleth not ; I recognize the tokens
of the ancient flame."

But Virgil had left us bereft of himself, Virgil sweetest
Father, Virgil to whom for my weal I gave me up ;

nor did all that our ancient mother lost, avail to keep
my dew-washed cheeks from turning dark again
with tears.

" Dante, for that Virgil goeth away, weep not yet,
weep not yet, for thou must weep for other
sword."

Even as an admiral, who at stern and at bow, comes to
see the folk that man the other ships, and heartens
them to brave deeds,

so on the left side of the car, when I turned me at sound
of my name, which of necessity here is recorded,

I saw the lady, who first appeared to me veiled beneath
the angelic festival, directing her eyes to me on
this side of the stream.

Albeit the veil which fell from her head, crowned with
Minerva's leaves, did not let her appear manifest,

142 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

queen-like in bearing, yet stern, she continued like one
who speaks and holdeth back the hottest words
till the last:

" Look at me well ; verily am I, verily am I Beatrice.
How didst thou deign to draw nigh the mount ?
Knowest thou not that here man is happy ? "

Mine eyes dropped down to the clear fount ; but be-
holding me therein, I drew them back to the grass,
so great a shame weighed down my brow.

So doth the mother seem stern to her child, as she
seemed to me ; for the savour of harsh pity tasteth
of bitterness.

She was silent, and straightway the angels sang : " In
te, Domine, speravi" ; but beyond "pedes meos"
they passed not.

As the snow amid the living rafters along Italia's back
is frozen under blast and stress of Slavonian
winds,

then melted trickles down through itself, if but the
land that loseth shade doth breathe, so that it
seems fire melting the candle,

so without tears or sighs was I before the song of those
who ever accord their notes after the melodies of
the eternal spheres.

But when I heard in their sweet harmonies their com-
passion on me, more than if they had said, " Lady,
why dost thou so shame him ? "

the ice which had closed about my heart became breath
and water, and with anguish through mouth and
eyes issued from my breast.

She, standing yet fixed on the said side of the car, then
turned her words to the pitying angels thus :

IL MAESTRO 143

" Ye watch in the everlasting day, so that nor night
nor sleep stealeth from you one step which the
world may take along its ways ;

wherefore my answer is with greater care, that he who
yon side doth weep may understand me, so that
sin and sorrow be of one measure.

Not only by operation of the mighty spheres that direct
each seed to some end, according as the stars are
its companions,

but by the bounty of graces divine, which have for
their rain vapours so high that our eyes reach not
nigh them,

this man was such in his new life potentially, that every
good talent would have made wondrous increase
in him.

But so much the more rank and wild the ground be-
comes with evil seed and untilled, the more it hath
of good strength of soil.

Some time I sustained him with my countenance ;
showing my youthful eyes to him I led him with
me turned to the right goal.

So soon as I was on the threshold of my second age,
and I changed life, he forsook me, and gave him
to others.

When I was risen from flesh to spirit, and beauty and
virtue were increased within me, I was less precious
and less pleasing to him ;

and he did turn his steps by a way not true, pursuing false
visions of good, that pay back no promise entire.

Nor did it avail me to gain inspirations, with which in
dream and otherwise, I called him back ; so little
recked he of them.

144 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

So low sank he, that all means for his salvation were
already short, save showing him the lost people.

For this I visited the portal of the dead, and to him
who has guided him up hither, weeping my prayers
were borne.

God's high decree would be broken, if Lethe were
passed, and such viands were tasted, without some
scot of penitence that may shed tears."

The Divine Pageant moves eastward ; Dante beholds
the mystic tree. The vision is filled with a profusion
of symbols, as bewildering as those in Ezekiel ; Dante,
having drunk of Lethe and Eunoe, concludes the
u Purgatorio " (" Purg.," Canto xxxiii. 142-145).

" I came back from the most holy waves born again,
even as new trees renewed with new foliage, pure
and ready to mount to the stars."

" Puro e disposto a satire alle stelle"

PARADISO

u The colourless and formless and intangible essence
is visible to the mind, which is the only lord of the soul :
circling around this in the region above the heavens is
the place of true knowledge." Thus Plato in the
" Phasdrus " ; and likewise, " Now of the heaven which
is above the heavens no earthly poet has sung, or ever
will sing in a worthy manner."

Here our agreement with Plato is to be tempered by
the definition of two words : undefined " earthly " and
" worthy." Yet if we seek a true definition of the
" Paradise " we must take it from the same Greek
dialogue :

" And this is the recollection of those things which
our souls saw when in company with God — when looking

IL MAESTRO 145

down from above on that which we now call being, and
upward toward the true being."

(" Paradise," Canto i. 1-13) :
" The All-mover's glory penetrates through the universe,

and regloweth in one region more, and less in

another.
In that heaven which most receiveth of his light have

I been ; and have seen things which whoso de-

scendeth from up there hath neither knowledge nor

power to re-tell ; because, as it draweth nigh to

its desire, our intellect sinketh so deep that memory

cannot go back upon the track.
Natheless, whatever of the holy realm I had the power

to treasure in my memory shall now be matter of

my song." -

Nowhere is the nature of the mystic ecstasy so well
described as in Canto i. 67-69 :
" Gazing on her such I became within, as was Glaucus,

tasting of the grass that made him the sea-fellow

of the other gods."

Yet there follows the reservation in the next lines,
70-82 :
" To pass beyond humanity may not be told in words,

wherefore let the example satisfy him for whom

grace reserveth the experience.
If I was only that of me which thou didst new-create,

O Love who rulest heaven, thou knowest, who

with thy light didst lift me up.
When the wheel which thou, by being longed for,

makest eternal, drew unto itself my mind with the

harmony which thou dost temper and distinguish,
so much of heaven then seemed to me enkindled with

the sun's flame, that rain nor river ever made

a lake so widely distended."

146 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

Dante's own attitude towards the readers of his
highest song is everywhere manifest.

Beatrice's gentleness in guiding him [" Paradiso " i.

100-105 :

" Whereon she, after a sigh of pity, turned her eyes
toward me with that look a mother casts on her
delirious child ;

and began: 'All things whatsoever observe a mutual
order ; and this is the form that maketh the universe
like unto God.' "]

is in some measure extended to the reader, who is both
warned and allured (Canto ii. 1-21) :

" O ye who in your little skiff, longing to hear, have
followed on my keel that singeth on its way,

turn to revisit your own shores ; commit you not to the
open sea ; for perchance, losing me, ye would be
left astray.

The water which I take was never coursed before ;
Minerva bloweth, Apollo guideth me, and the nine
Muses point me to the Bears.

Ye other few, who timely have lifted up your necks for
bread of angels whereby life is here sustained but
wherefrom none cometh away sated,

ye may indeed commit your vessel to the deep keeping
my furrow, in advance of the water that is falling
back to the level.

The glorious ones who fared to Colchis not so mar-
velled as shall ye, when Jason turned ox-plough-
man in their sight.

The thirst, born with us and ne'er failing, for the god-
like realm bore us swift almost as ye see the
heaven."

IL MAESTRO 147

For the description of the ascent the following
passages serve without gloze ("Paradise," Canto ii.

" Meseemed a cloud enveloped us, shining dense, firm
and polished, like diamond smitten by the sun.

Within itself the eternal pearl received us, as water
doth receive a ray of light, though still itself
uncleft."

With such beauty as this is the " Paradiso " radiant.
Thus of the spirits in the lunar heaven (Canto iii.
9-24) :
u In such guise as, from glasses transparent and polished,

or from waters clear and tranquil, not so deep

that the bottom is darkened,
come back the notes of our faces, so faint that a

pearl on a white brow cometh not slowlier, upon

our pupils ;

so did I behold many a countenance, eager to speak;

wherefore I fell into the counter-error of that

which kindled love between the man and fountain.
No sooner was I aware of them, thinking them reflected

images, I turned round my eyes to see of whom

they were."

Picarda's speech of explanation contains that phil-
osophy with which some say the poem is over-loaded.
Surely this also is the very marrow of beauty.

Canto iii. 1. 70.

"' Brother, the quantity of love stilleth our will, and
maketh us long only for what we have, and giveth
us no other thirst.

Did we desire to be more aloft, our longings were
discordant from his will who here assorteth us,

148 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

and for that, thou wilt see, there is no room within
these circles, if of necessity we have our being
here in love, and if thou think again what is love's
nature.

Nay, 'tis the essence of this blessed being to hold
ourselves within the divine will, whereby our own
wills are themselves made one.

So that our being thus, from threshold unto threshold
throughout the realm, is a joy to all the realm as
to the king, who draweth our wills to what he
willeth ;

and his will is our peace ; it is that sea to which all
moves that it createth and that nature maketh.'

Clear was it then to me how everywhere in heaven
is Paradise, e'en though the grace of the chief
Good doth not reign there after one fashion only."

The beauty of the " Paradise" hardly suffers one to
transplant it in fragments, as I here attempt.

It is of this sort of poetry that Coleridge says :
" Our regard is not for particular passages but for a
continuous undercurrent." There are beautiful images
in the " Paradiso," but the chief marvel is not the
ornament.

Such lines as Canto v. 7-12 —

" Io veggio ben si come gia risplende
Nello Intelletto tuo /' eterna luce,
Che, vista sola, sempre amore accende ;

E s1 altra cosa vostro amor seduce,
Non e se non di quella alcun vestigia
Mai conosciuto, che quivi trainee " —

lose too much in a prose translation, illuminated though
they be in essence.

IL MAESTRO 149

In Canto vi. the incident of Romeo can be dis-
entangled from its context. We are now in the heaven
of mercury, the second heaven, assigned to the honour-
seeking.

Canto vi. 124-142

" Divers voices upon earth make sweet melody, and so
the divers seats in our life render sweet harmony
amongst these wheels.

And within the present pearl shineth the light of
Romeo, whose beauteous and great work was so
ill answered.

But the Provencals who wrought against him have not
the laugh ; -wherefore he taketh an ill path who
maketh of another's good work his own loss.

Four daughters had Raymond Berenger, and every one
a queen, and this was wrought for him by Romeo,
a lowly and an alien man ;

then words uttered askance moved him to demand
account of this just man, who gave him five and
seven for every ten ;

who then took his way in poverty and age ; and might
the world know the heart he had within him,
begging his life by crust and crust, much as it
praiseth, it would praise him more."

The historical background to the passage can be
found in " Villani," or in the notes to the Temple
edition of the " Paradiso."

Though it be true that no man who has not passed
through, or nearly approached that spiritual experience
known as illumination — I use the word in a technical
sense — can appreciate the " Paradiso " to the full, yet

150 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

there is sheer poetic magic in a line like (Canto vii.

J3°)—

" Gil angeli,frate, e il paese sincero"

which no lover of the highest art can fail to feel.

I am always filled with a sort of angry wonder that
any one professing to care for poetry can x remain in
ignorance of the tongue in which the " Commedia "
is written. It shows a dulness, a stolidity, which is
incomprehensible to any one who really knows the
" Commedia."

I do not need to quote the subtlest living translator,
who, speaking of " the still unsurpassed vision of the
Divine Comedy," says : " To translate Dante is an
impossible thing, for to do it would demand, as the
first requirement, a concise and luminous style equal
to Wordsworth at his best." The italics are my own ;
the quotation is from Arthur Symons, on Cary, in
"The Romantic Movement in English Literature."

The original of the following passage (vii. 136-144) :

" Creatafu la materia cK egli hanno,
creata fu la virtu informante
in queste stelle, che intorno a lor vanno.

V anima a" ogni bruto e delle plante

dl complession potenziata tlra

lo raggio e il moto delle luci sante.

Ma vostra vita senza mezzo spira
la somma beninanza, e la innamora
di se, st poi sempre la disira"

is infinitely more beautiful than the bare sense in

English, which is :

" Created was the matter which they hold, created was

1 Unless hindered by some irremovable obstacle, natural or
circumstantial.

IL MAESTRO 151

the informing virtue in these stars which sweep
around them.

The life of every brute and of the plants is drawn from
compounds having potency, by the ray and move-
ment of the sacred lights.

But your life is breathed without mean by the supreme
beneficence who maketh it enamoured of itself,1 so
that thereafter it doth ever long for it."

" In queste stelle, che intorno a lor vanno"

with the suave blending of the elided vowels, has in its
sound alone more of the serene peace from that un-
sullied country than can be conveyed in any words
save those flowing from the lips of a supreme genius.

Canto viii. 13-27

"I had no sense of rising into it, but my lady gave
me full faith that I was there, because I saw her
grow more beautiful.

And as we see a spark within a flame, and as a voice
within a voice may be distinguished, if one stayeth
firm, and the other cometh and goeth ;

so, in that light itself I perceived other torches
moving in a circle more or less swift, after the
measure, I suppose, of their eternal vision.

From a chill cloud there ne'er descended blasts, or
visible or no, so rapidly as not to seem hindered
and lagging.

to whoso should have seen those lights divine advance
towards us, quitting the circling that hath its first
beginning in the exalted Seraphim."

He is speaking of the third heaven, that of Venus.

1 I.e. the beneficence.

152 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

Here, in defiance of convention, we find Cunizza
(Canto ix. 31-33) :

"Out of one root spring I with it; Cunizza was I
called, and here I glow because the light of this

star overcame me."

In Canto ix. 1. 103-106:

(" Yet here we not repent, but smile ; not at the sin,
which cometh not again to mind, but at the Worth
that ordered and provided," )

we have matter for a philosophical treatise as long as
the " Paradiso."

Canto ix. 1. 133-135 :

" Therefore it is that the Gospel and great Doctors
are deserted, and only the Decretals are so studied,
as may be seen upon their margins,"

shows Dante's scant regard for the ecclesiastical lumber
by which his philosophy is said by certain critics to
be smothered.

With the third heaven the shadow of earth is left
behind ; in the fourth, the shadow of the sun.

In Canto x. 64-69 he describes the dwellers therein :

" Then saw I many a glow, living and conquering, make
of us a centre, and of themselves a crown ; sweeter
in voice than shining in appearance.

Thus girt we sometimes see Latona's daughter, when
the air is so impregnated as to retain the thread
that makes her zone."

In Canto x. 70-81 he describes their manifestation
of joy :

IL MAESTRO 153

" In the court of heaven, whence I have returned, are
many gems so clear and beauteous that from that
realm they may not be withdrawn,

and the song of these lights was of such that he who
doth not so wing himself that he may fly up there,
must look for news thence from the dumb.

When, so singing, those burning suns had circled round
us thrice, like stars neighbouring the fixed poles,

they seemed as ladies, not from the dance released, but
silent, listening till they catch the notes renewed."

With constant light, and ever-increasing melody the
ascent continues.

In Canto xii. 10-24 he gives us the figure of the
double rainbow :

" As sweep o'er the thin mist two bows, parallel and
like in colour, when Juno maketh behest to her
handmaiden,

the one without born from the one within — in fashion
of the speech of that wandering nymph whom love
consumed as the sun doth the vapours, —

making folk on earth foreknow, in virtue of the com-
pact that God made with Noah, that the world
shall never be drowned again ;

so of those sempiternal roses there revolved around us
the two garlands, and so the outmost answered to
the other :

Soon as the dance and high great festival, — alike of
song and flashing light with light, gladsome and
benign, — paused at one point and one desire."

In the fifth heaven (that of Mars) glows the glorious
cross of stars, recalling by its difference the vision of
the Saxon Caedmon.

154 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

Canto xiv. 97-11 1.

" As, pricked out with less and greater lights, between
the poles of the universe the Milky Way so gleameth
white as to set very sages questioning,

so did those rays, star-decked, make in the depth of
Mars l the venerable sign which crossing quadrant
lines make in a circle.

Here my memory doth outrun my wit, for that cross so
flashed forth Christ I may not find example worthy.

But whoso taketh his cross and followeth Christ shall

yet forgive me what I leave unsaid, when he shall

see Christ lighten in that glow.
From horn to horn, from summit unto base, were moving

lights that sparkled mightily in meeting one another

and in passing."
And the accompanying melody, 118-123 :

" And as viol and harp tuned in harmony of many cords,

make sweet chiming to one by whom the notes are

not apprehended,
so from the lights that there appeared to me was

gathered on the cross a strain that rapt me, albeit

I followed not the hymn."

" / vivl suggelli d* ogni bellezza " (1. 133)

recalls Richard St Victor's luminous treatise, " The
Benjamin Minor."

Canto xv. 4-7 :
" The benign will . . .
imposed silence on that sweet lyre, and stilled the sacred

things, which the right hand of heaven looseneth

and stretcheth,"
so of the silence following this melody.

1 I.e. not in the planet, but the heaven in which the planet moves.

IL MAESTRO 155

Canto xv. 13-24

" As through the tranquil and pure skies darteth, from
time to time, a sudden flame setting a-moving eyes
that erst were steady,

seeming a star that changeth place, save that from
where it kindleth no star is lost, and that itself
endureth but a little ;

such from the horn that stretcheth to the right unto
that cross's foot, darteth a star of the constellation
that is there a-glow ;

nor did the gem depart from off its riband, but coursed
along the radial line, like fire burning behind
alabaster."

" che parve foco retro ad alabastro"

In Canto xvii. Cacciaguida, prophesying to Dante
his future misfortunes, utters the lines since hackneyed
(58-60) :

" Thou shalt make trial of how salt doth taste another's
bread, and how hard the path to descend and mount
upon another's stair."

The word "scale" bears, of course, the barbed pun
on Can Grande's family name.

But no one can take the quiet humour as ill-natured,
or read it apart from the context in praise of Bartolomeo
and Can Grande, 70-87 :

"Thy first refuge and first hostelry shall be the courtesy
of the great Lombard, who on the ladder beareth
the sacred bird,

for who shall cast so benign regard on thee that of doing
and demanding, that shall be first betwixt you twor
which betwixt others most doth lag.

156 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

With him thou shalt see the one who so at his birth
was stamped by this strong star, that notable shall
be his deeds.

Not yet have folk taken due note of him, because of
his young age, for only nine years have these wheels
rolled round him.

But ere the Gascon have deceived the lofty Henry,
sparks of his virtue shall appear in carelessness of
' silver and of toils.

His deeds munificent shall yet be known so that con-
cerning them his very foes shall not be able to
keep silent tongues."

The "Paradiso" holds one by its all-pervading sense
of beauty, even so the lines xxiii. 79-80 stand out from
the surrounding text.

uAs, by the light of a sun-ray coming through a
broken cloud, mine eyes have before seen a meadow
of flowers covered with shadow, so did I see more hosts
of splendours, illumined from above by ardent light, yet
saw not the source of the effulgence."

It is beautiful because of the objective vision, and it
is all the more remarkable in having been written
centuries before the painters had taught men to note
light and shade, and to watch for such effects in nature.

In this same canto Dante anticipates Coleridge's most
magical definition of beauty (xaXo? quasi xaXoui/) in lines
97-102.

u Whatever melody most sweetly soundeth on earth,
and doth most draw the soul unto itself, would seem a
rent cloud's thundering, compared to the sound of that
lyre, whereby is crowned that sapphire whereby the
clearest heaven is ensapphired."

IL MAESTRO 157

With what Homeric majesty, and what simplicity
falls his epithet for that sphere which whirls the largest,
the primum mobile, most volent of the concentric spheres

" Lo real manto" (1. 113.)

uThe royal mantle."

The beautiful simile, xxvi. 85, shows how well he
had followed Arnaut Daniel.

"As the spray which boweth its tip at the transit of
the wind, and then of its own power doth raise it again ;
so I while Beatrice was speaking."

It is no borrowing, but it is Arnaut's kind of beauty.

In xxviii. we find what seems to me the finest of the
explanatory passages ; it concerns the angelic hierarchies
(line 1 06).

" And thou shouldst know that all have their delight
In measure as their sight more deeply sinketh
Into that truth where every mind grows still ;
From this thou mayest see that being blessed
Buildeth itself upon the power of sight
Not upon love which is there-consequent.
Lo, merit hath its measure in that sight
Which grace begetteth and the righteous will,
And thus from grade to grade the progress goeth."

The vigour of sunlight in the " Paradiso" is unmatched
in art, even by Blake's design, " When the morning stars
sang together " ; being a quality of the whole it is hard
to illustrate by fragments ; it is, however, reflected in
the following lines (xxviii. 115-120) :

"The second ternary which thus flowereth in this
eternal spring, which nightly Aries despoileth notr
unceasingly unwintereth c Hosanna ' with three melodies,
which sound in the three orders of joy wherewith it is
triplex."

158 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

And in xxix. 76 :

" Queste sustanzie, pole he fur gwconde
della faccla dl Dto"

(There is no English equivalent.)
xxix. 142-146 is likewise intranslatable.

" Vedl Feccelso omai, e la larghezza
dell* eterno valor ^ poscia che tantl
speculijatti s* ha, In che si spezza,
uno manendo In se, come davanti"

In Canto xxx. begins the description of the ultimate
heaven, the Empyrean of pure light. Fainting, restored,
and again illumined, Dante continues (1. 61-69) :

" And I saw light in the form of a river, tawny with
brightness, between two banks painted with miraculous
spring-time.

" From such a flood there issued living sparks, and
dropped on every side into the flowers, like unto
rubies which gold circumscribes.

" Then, as if drunk with the odours, they re-plunged
themselves (riprofondavan se) into the marvelous torrent,
and as one entered another issued forth."

In 1. 76-8 Beatrice says of the river :

uThe river and the topaz-gems which enter and go
forth are shadowy prefaces of their truth."

1. 109-129 describe the paradisal rose:

"And as in water a hill-slope mirrors itself from its
base, as if to see itself adorned, when it is richest in
grasses and in flowers

" So mounting above the light, circle on circle, mirror-
ing itself in more than a thousand thresholds all that
(part) of us which hath won return up thither.

IL MAESTRO 159

" And if the lowest step gathererh in itself such great
light, what is the largess of that rose in its extremest
petals ?

"My sight fainted not in the breadth and height,
but understood the c How much ' and the ' What sort '
of that joy.

" There neither ' Near ' nor c Far ' doth add nor take
away, for where God governeth without medium,
natural law pertaineth not.

"Into the yellow of the sempiternal rose, which
dilates and outstretches, and sendeth up the odour of
praise unto the Sun that ever giveth forth Spring,

" Beatrice drew me up, I being as one who would
keep silence and yet speak, and she said to me : ' Behold,
how great is the convent of the white stoles ! ' '

Of the angels and the rose, Dante writes (xxxi.
7-18):

"As a swarm of bees that now inflowereth itself,
and now returneth to where its labour is made honey,

" they descended into the great flower that is
adorned with so many petals, and thence reascended to
that place where their love sojourneth ever.

" Faces had they of living brightness, and golden
wings, and the rest of them of whiteness that no snow
ever attaineth."

To Beatrice, when she has resumed her place in the
rose, he says:

"O lady, in whom is the might of my hope, who
hast for my salvation suffered thyself to leave in hell
thy foot-prints ;

"For all the things which I have seen, I recognize
the grace and the might of thy power and of thy
kindness.

160 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

" From slavery hast thou drawn me into liberty, by
all the roads and by all the modes wherein thou hast
had power of action."

These nine lines, taken apart from the context, are,
I suppose, the noblest love lyric in the world, unless we
shall bring the " Magnificat " itself into the comparison.

Of Mary he writes (xxxi. 133-135) :

" Vidi quivi at lor glochi ed at lor canti
ridere una bellezza, che letizia
era negll occhl a tutti gll altri santi"

Of the final manifestation he writes (xxxiii. 55-66):

u Thence was the vision mightier than our speech,
which at such vision faileth, and memory faileth con-
cerning such a < passing beyond.'

"As one who dreaming seeth, and after the dream,
the passion impressed remaineth, while naught else
cometh back upon the mind ;

" Such was I, so that nearly all my vision ceaseth,
but the sweet which was born thereof still distilleth
itself within the heart.

"Thus doth the snow before the sun unstamp itself,
thus in the light leaves upon the wind was lost the
Sybil's saying."

In 85-89:

"In its profound I saw contain itself, bound by love
into one volume, that which is read throughout the
universe ; substance and accidents and their customs, in
such wise that that which 1 speak is a simple light."

And then the conclusion, 1. 124-145:

"O light eternal, that dost dwell only in thyself,
alone dost comprehend thyself, and self-comprehended,
self-comprehending, dost love and send forth gladness !

IL MAESTRO 161

"That circling, which so conceived appeared in thee
as a reflected light, beheld awhile by my eyes, within
itself, of its own colour, appeared to me painted in our
image, wherefore my sight was all committed to it.

" As is the geometer who sets himself to square the
circle, and does not find, by thinking, that principle
whence he lacketh, such was I at this new sight ; I
would have wished to see how the image conveneth to
the circle, and how it is contained ; but for this my
wings were unfitted, save that my mind was smitten
by an effulgence, wherein its will came to it.

" Power I lack for this high fantasy, but already my
desire and the will were turned, as a wheel which is
balanced perfectly and moveth, by love that moves the
sun and all the stars."

" /' amor che move it sole e /' altre stelle"

Surely for the great poem that ends herewith our
befitting praise were silence.

The "Divina Commedia" must not be considered as an
epic; to compare it with epic poems is usually unprofitable.
It is in a sense lyric, the tremendous lyric of the subjec-
tive Dante ; but the soundest classification of the poem
is Dante's own, " as a comedy which differs from tragedy
in its content " (Epistle to Can Grande), for " tragedy
begins admirably and tranquilly," and the end is terrible,
" whereas comedy introduces some harsh complication,
but brings the matter to a prosperous end." The
"Commedia" is, in .fact, a great Mystery Play, or
better, a cycle of mystery plays.

In the passages quoted I have in no way attempted
to summarize the "Commedia"; it is itself an epitome.
I have tried to illustrate some, not all, of the qualities
of its beauty, but Dante in English is Marsyas un-
sheathed.

162 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

Any sincere criticism of the highest poetry must
resolve itself into a sort of profession of faith. The
critic must begin with a u credo" and his opinion will be
received in part for the intelligence he may seem to
possess, and in part for his earnestness. Certain of
Dante's supremacies are comprehensible only to such
as know Italian and have themselves attained a certain
proficiency in the poetic art. An ipse dixit is not neces-
sarily valueless. The penalty for remaining a layman
is that one must at times accept a specialist's opinion.
No one ever took the trouble to become a specialist
for the bare pleasure of ramming his ipse dixit down
the general throat.

There are two kinds of beautiful painting one may
perhaps illustrate by the works of Burne-Jones and
Whistler ; one looks at the first kind of painting and
is immediately delighted by its beauty ; the second
kind of painting, when first seen, puzzles one, but
on leaving it, and going from the gallery one finds
new beauty in natural things — a Thames fog, to use
the hackneyed example. Thus, there are works of
art which are beautiful objects and works of art
which are keys or passwords admitting one to a
deeper knowledge, to a finer perception of beauty ;
Dante's work is of the second sort.

Presumably critical analysis must precede in part
by comparison; Wordsworth is, we may say, the
orthodox sign for comprehension of nature, yet where
has Wordsworth written lines more instinct with
"nature-feeling" than those in the twenty-eighth of
the "Purgatorio."

" r aqua diss* io, e II suon della fores ta
impugnan den fro a me novella fede"

" The water, quoth I, and the woodland murmuring
drive in new faith upon my soul."

IL MAESTRO 163

So one is tempted to translate it for the sake of the
rhythm, but Dante has escaped the metaphysical term,
and describes the actual sensation with more intensity.
His words are :

" in-drive new faith within to me."

Wordsworth and the Uncouth American share the
palm for modern " pantheism," or some such thing ;
but weigh their words with the opening lines of the
" Paradiso " :

" La gloria dl colui che tutto move
Per /' universo penetra e nsplende
In una parte pi #, e meno altrove"

" The glory of him who moveth all
Penetrates and is resplendent through the all
In one part more and in another less."

The disciples of Whitman cry out concerning the
u Cosmic Sense," but Whitman, with all his catalogues
and flounderings, has never so perfectly expressed the
perception of Cosmic Consciousness as does Dante in
the canto just quoted (i. 68-69) :

" Qualsife* Glauco net gustar del? erba
Che ilfi consorto in mar degli altri del."

" As Glaucus, tasting of the grass which made him sea-fellow of
the other gods."

Take it as simple prose expression, forget that it
is told with matchless sound, discount the suggestion
of the parallel beauty in the older myth, and it is still
more convincing than Whitman.

Shelley, I believe, ranks highest as the English " tran-
scendental " poet, whatever that may mean. Shelley is
honest in his endeavour to translate a part of Dante's
message into the more northern tongue. He is, in
sort, a faint echo of the "Paradiso," very much as Rossetti

1 64 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

is, at his best, an echo of the shorter Tuscan poetry.
I doubt if Shelley ever thought of concealing the source
of much of this beauty, which he made his own by
appreciation. Certainly few men have honoured Dante
more than did Shelley. His finest poem, " The Ode to
the West Wind," bears witness to his impressions of
the earlier canti; thus to "Inferno" iii., of the host
under the whirling ensign, and especially the lines
112-115:

" Come d* autunno si lev an le foglle
V uno appreso dell* altra infin che II ramo
Vede alia terra tutte le sue spoglie"

" As leaves of autumn fall one after one
Till the branch seeth all it spoils upon
The ground. . . ."

The full passage from which this is taken foreshadows
Shelley's " pestilence-stricken multitudes." In the Vth
Canto :

" ombre portate della briga"

" shadows borne upon the aforesaid strife,"

and the rest, with the movement of the wind, is
pregnant with suggestions for the splendid English
ode. I detract nothing from Shelley's glory, for of the
tens of thousands who have read these canti, only one
has written such an ode.

This is not an isolated or a chance incident, the best
of Shelley is filled with memories of Dante.

The comparison of Dante and Milton is at best
a stupid convention. Shelley resembles Dante afar
off, and in a certain effect of clear light which both
produce.

Milton resembles Dante in nothing; judging super-
ficially, one might say that they both wrote long poems
which mention God and the angels, but their gods and

IL MAESTRO 165

their angels are as different as their styles and abilities.
Dante's god is ineffable divinity. Milton's god is a
fussy old man with a hobby. Dante is metaphysical,
where Milton is merely sectarian. " Paradise Lost" is
conventional melodrama, and later critics have decided
that the devil is intended for the hero, which interpreta-
tion leaves the whole without significance. Dante's
satan is undeniably and indelibly evil. He is not " Free
Will " but stupid malignity. Milton has no grasp of
the super-human. Milton's angels are men of enlarged
power, plus wings. Dante's angels surpass human
nature, and differ from it. They move in their high
courses inexplicable.

"mafe sembiante
£ uomo, cm altra cura sfringa"

" Appeared as a man whom other care incites."

"Inf." ix. 10 1.

Milton, moreover, shows a complete ignorance of the
things of the spirit. Any attempt to compare the
two poets as equals is bathos, and it is, incidentally,
unfair to Milton, because it makes one forget all his
laudable qualities.

Shakespear alone of the English poets endures sus-
tained comparison with the Florentine. Here are we
with the masters ; of neither can we say, " He is the
greater " ; of each we must say, u He is unexcelled."

It is idle to ask what Dante would have made of
writing stage plays, or what Shakespear would have
done with a " Paradise."

There is almost an exact three centuries between
their dates of birth [Dante, b. 1265; Shakespear,
1564.] America had been discovered, printing, the
Reformation, the Renaissance were new forces at work.
Much change had swept over the world ; but art and

1 66 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

humanity, remaining ever the same, gave us basis for
comparison.

Dante would seem to have the greater imaginative
"vision," the greater ability to see the marvellous
scenery through which his action passes ; but Shake-
spear's vision is never deficient, though his expression
of it be confined to a few lines of suggestion and the
prose of the stage directions.

Shakespear would seem to have greater power in
depicting various humanity, and to be more observant
of its foibles ; but recalling Dante's comparisons to the
gamester leaving the play, to the peasant at the time
of hoar-frost, to the folk passing in the shadow of
evening, one wonders if he would have been less apt
at fitting them with speeches. His dialogue is com-
paratively symbolic, it serves a purpose similar to that
of the speeches in Plato, yet both he and Plato convey
the impression of individuals speaking.

If the language of Shakespear is more beautifully
suggestive, that of Dante is more beautifully definite ;
both men are masters of the whole art. Shakespear
is perhaps more brilliant in his use of epithets of proper
quality ; thus I doubt if there be in Dante, or in all
literature, any epithet so masterfully-placed as is Shake-
spear's in the speech of the Queen-mother to Hamlet,
where she says:

" And with the incorporal air do hold discourse,"

suggesting both the common void of the air which she
sees and the ghostly form at which Hamlet stands
aghast ; on the other hand, Dante is, perhaps, more
apt in a comparison."

" The apt use of metaphor, arising, as it does, from
a swift perception of relations, is the hall-mark of
genius": thus says Aristotle. I use the term " com-

IL MAESTRO 167

parison " to include metaphor, simile (which is a more
leisurely expression of a kindred variety of thought),
and the "language beyond metaphor," that is, the
more compressed or elliptical expression of metaphorical
perception, such as antithesis suggested or implied in
verbs and adjectives ; for we find adjectives of two
sorts, thus, adjectives of pure quality, as : white, cold,
ancient; and adjectives which are comparative, as:
lordly. Epithets may also be distinguished as epithets
of primary and secondary apparition. By epithets of
primary apparition I mean those which describe what is
actually presented to the sense or vision. Thus in
selva oscura, "shadowy wood"; epithets of secondary
apparition or after-thought are such as in "sage
Hippotades " or "forbidden tree." Epithets of primary
apparition give vividness to description and stimulate
conviction in the actual vision of the poet. There are
likewise clauses and phrases of u primary apparition."
Thus, in "Inferno " x., where Cavalcante di Cavalcanti's
head appears above the edge of the tomb,

" credo che s' era In ginocchle levata"
" I believe he had risen on his knees,"

has no beauty in itself, but adds greatly to the veri-
similitude.

There are also epithets of " emotional apparition,"
transensuous, suggestive : thus in Mr Yeats' line :

" Under a bitter black wind that blows from the left hand,"

Dante's colouring and qualities of the infernal air,
although they are definitely symbolical and not in-
definitely suggestive, foreshadow this sort of epithet.
The modern symbolism is more vague, it is sometimes
allegory in three dimensions instead of two, sometimes
merely atmospheric suggestion.

i68 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

It is in the swift forms of comparison, however, that
Dante sets much of his beauty. Thus :

" dove il sol tace,"
" where the sun is silent,"

or,

" F aura morta"

" the dead air."

In this last the comparison fades imperceptibly into
emotional suggestion.

His vividness depends much on his comparison by
simile to particular phenomena ; this we have already
noted in the chapter on Arnaut Daniel ; thus Dante,
following the Proven9al, says, not " where a river pools
itself," but

" Si come ad Aril, ove il Rodano stagna"
" As at Aries, where the Rhone pools itself."

Or when he is describing not a scene but a feeling, he
makes such comparison as in the matchless simile to
Glaucus, already quoted.

Dante's temperament is austere, patrician; Shake-
spear, as nature, combines refinement with profusion ;
it is as natural to compare Dante to a cathedral as it is to
compare Shakespear to a forest ; yet Shakespear is not
more enamoured of out-of-door beauty than is Dante.
Their lands make them familiar with a different sort of
out-of-doors. Shakespear shows his affection for this
beauty as he knows it in —

" — the morn, in russet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill " ;

and Dante, when the hoar frost

" paints her white sister's image on the ground."

IL MAESTRO 169

It is part of Dante's aristocracy that he conceded
nothing to the world, or to opinion —

" si come avesse /' inferno in gran dispetto"
(" as if he held hell in great disdain ") ;

he met his reverses ; Shakespear concedes, succeeds,
and repents in one swift, bitter line :

" I have made myself a motley to the view."

Shakespear comes nearer to most men, partly from
his habit of speaking from inside his characters instead
of conversing with them. He seems more human, but
only when we forget the intimate confession of the
" Vita Nuova " or such lines of the " Commedia " as

" col quale ilfantolin corre alia mamma
quanti** ha paura o quando egli e ajlitto"

" as the little child runs to its mother when it has fear, or when it
is hurt."

Dante has the advantage in points of pure sound ;
his onomatopoeia is not a mere trick of imitating
natural noises, but is a mastery in fitting the inarticu-
late sound of a passage to the mood or to the quality
of voice which expresses that mood or passion which
the passage describes or expresses. Shakespear has
a language less apt for this work in pure sound, but
he understands the motion of words, or, if the term
be permitted, the overtones and undertones of rhythm,
and he uses them with a mastery which no one but
Burns has come reasonably near to approaching.
Other English poets master this part of the art
occasionally, or as if by accident ; there is a fine example
in a passage of Sturge Moore's " Defeat of the
Amazons," where the spirit of his faun leaps and
scurries, with the words beginning :

"Ahi! ahi! ahl! Laomedan?

i yo THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

This government of speed is a very different thing
from the surge and sway of the epic music where the
smoother rhythm is so merged with the sound quality as
to be almost inextricable. The two things compare
almost as the rhythm of a drum compares to the rhythm
(not the sound) of the violin or organ. Thus, the
u surge and sway " are wonderful in Swinburne's first
chorus in the " Atalanta " ; while the other quality of
word motion is most easily distinguished in, though by
no means confined to, such poems as Burns' c' Birks o?
Aberfeldy," where the actual sound-quality of the
words contributes little or nothing to the effect, which
is dependent solely on the arrangement of quantities
(i.e. the lengths of syllables) and accent. It is not,
as it might first seem, a question of vowel music as
opposed to consonant music.

For such as are interested in the question of sources,
it may be well to write, once for all, that there is
nothing particularly new in describing the journey of
a living man through hell, or even of his translation
into Paradise ; Arda Virap, in the Zoroastrian legend,
was sent as ambassador, in the most accredited fashion,
with full credentials he ascended into Paradise, and
saw the pains of hell shortly afterwards. The
description of such journeys may be regarded as a
confirmed literary habit of the race.

The question of Shakespear's debt to Dante and the
Tuscan poets is not of vital importance. It is true that
a line of Shakespear is often a finer expression of a
Dantescan thought than any mere translator of Dante
has hit upon, but nothing is more natural than that the
two greatest poets of Christendom, holding up their
mirrors to nature, should occasionally reflect the same
detail. It is true that Shakespear's lines :

IL MAESTRO 171

" What is your substance, whereof are you made,
That millions of strange shadows on you tend ? "

seem like a marriage of words from Guido Orlandi's
sonnet to Guido Cavalcanti, and from one of Cavalcanti's
sonnets which I have quoted.

Mascetta Caracci has written a thesis on uShakespear
e i classici Italani," multiplying instances.

Early Tuscan sonnets are often very " Elizabethan,'*
and the Spanish imitations of the Tuscans are often
more so. Great poets seldom make bricks without
straw ; they pile up all the excellences they can beg,
borrow, or steal from their predecessors and contem-
poraries, and then set their own inimitable light atop of
the mountain. It seems unlikely that the author of
u The Sonnets " should have been ignorant of the finest
sonnets in the world, or that a man of Shakespear's
literary discernment should have read Bandello and not
the Italian masters. Shakespear knew of Gower, and
Gower and Chaucer knew of Dante. As Shakespear
wrote the finest poetry in English, it matters not one
jot whether or no he plundered the Italian lyrists in his
general sack of available literature.

That Shakespear, as Dante, is the conscious master
of his art is most patent from the manner in which he
plays with his art in the sonnets, teasing, experi-
menting, developing that technique which he so
marvellously uses and so cunningly conceals in the
later plays. To talk about " wood-notes wild " is sheer
imbecility.

Did Shakespear know his Tuscan poetry directly or
through some medium, through Petrarch, or through
some Italianized Englishman ? Why did he not write a
play on Francesa da Rimini ? There are a number of
subjects for amusing speculation ; theories will be built
from straws floating in the wind ; thus Francis Meres,

172 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

when in 1598 he writes of Shakespear's "fine-filed
phrase," may or may not have some half memory of
Dante's u amorosa lima" the " loving file" that had
" polished his speech."

Our knowledge of Dante and of Shakespear inter-
acts ; intimate acquaintance with either Breeds that
discrimination which makes us more keenly appreciate
the other.

One might indefinitely continue the praise of Dante's
excellence of technique and his splendours of detail ;
but beneath these individual and separate delights is
the great sub- surge of his truth and his sincerity : his
work is of that sort of art which is a key to the deeper
understanding of nature and the beauty of the world
and of the spirit. From his descriptions of the aspects
of nature I have already quoted the passage of the sun-
light and the cloud shadows; for the praise of that
part of his worth which is fibre rather than surface, my
mind is not yet ripe, nor is my pen skilled.

Let these speak for me ; first, John Boccaccio.

" To one who censured his Public Exposition^/ Dante

" If Dante mourns, there wheresoever he be,
That such high fancies of a soul so proud
Should be laid open to the vulgar crowd,
(As, touching my discourse, Fm told by thee,)
This were my grievous pain ; and certainly
My proper blame should not be disavow'd ;
Though hereof somewhat, I declare aloud,
Were due to others, not alone to me.
False hopes, true poverty, and therewithal
The blinded judgment of a host of friends,
And their entreaties, made that I did thus.
But of all this there is no gain at all
Unto the thankless souls with whose base ends
Nothing agrees that's great or generous."

IL MAESTRO 173

(Both sonnets as translated by Rossetti)

Inscription for a Portrait of Dante

" Dante Alighieri, a dark oracle
Of wisdom and of art I am, whose mind
Has to my country such great gifts assign'd
That men account my powers a miracle.
My lofty fancy pass'd as low as hell,
As high as heaven, secure and unconfined ;
And in my noble book doth every kind
Of earthly lore and heavenly doctrine dwell.
Renowned Florence was my mother, — nay,
Stepmother with me her piteous son,
Through sin of cursed slander's tongue and tooth.
Ravenna shelter'd me so cast away ;
My body is with her, — my soul with One
For whom no envy can make dim the truth."

Thus John Boccaccio, and after him that monolith,
Michael Agnolo Buonarotti,

On Dante Alighieri

" From heaven his spirit came, and robed in clay

The realms of justice and of mercy trod,

Then rose a living man to gaze on God,

That he might make the truth as clear as day.
For that pure star that brightened with his ray

The undeserving nest where I was born,

The whole wide world would be a prize to scorn ;

None but his Maker can due guerdon pay.
I speak of Dante, whose high work remains

Unknown, unhonoured by that thankless brood,

Who only to just men deny their wage.
Were I but he ! Born for like lingering pains,

Against his exile coupled with his good

I'd gladly change the world's best heritage !

1 From " Translations of M. A. B.'s Sonnets," by J. A. Symmonds.
Smith, Elder & Co.

174 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

No tongue can tell of him what should be told,
For on blind eyes his splendour shines too strong ;
'Twere easier to blame those who wrought him wrong
Than sound his least praise with a mouth of gold.

He to explore the place of pain was bold,

Then soared to God, to reach our souls by song ;
The gates heaven oped to bear his feet along,
Against his just desire his country rolled.

Thankless I call her, and to her own pain

The nurse of fell mischance ; for sign take this,
That ever to the best she deals more scorn :

Among a thousand proofs let one remain ;

Though ne'er was fortune more unjust than his,
His equal or his better ne'er was born.

NOTE. — The translations of the " Commedia " used in this chapter
are for the most part those of " The Temple Edition," the editors
of which have been wisely content with rendering the sense of the
original.

TABLE OF DATES 175

TABLE OF DATES

Arnaut Daniel . . . 1 180-1200 (arc.)

Guido Guincelli . . born 1220

Dante .... 1265-1321

Petrarch .... 1304-1374

Boccaccio . . . . I3I3~137S

Chaucer .... 1340-1400

Gower . . . died 1408

Villon .... 1 43 1 -after 1465

Michael Agnolo . . . 1475-1564

Camoens . . . born 1524

Lope de Vega . . . 1562-1635

Shakespear .... 1564-1616

CHAPTER VII

MONTCORBIER, ALIAS VILLON

THE century between Dante and Villon brought into
the poetry of northern Europe no element which was
distinctly new. The plant of the Renaissance was
growing, a plant which some say begins in Dante ; but
Dante, I think, anticipates the Renaissance only as one
year's harvest foreshadows the next year's spring. He
is the culmination of one age rather than the beginning
of the next ; he is like certain buildings at Verona,
which show forth the splendour of the Middle Ages,
untouched by any influence of the classic revival.

In architecture, mediaeval work means line ; line,
composition and design : Renaissance work means mass.
The mediaeval architect envied the spider his cobweb.
The Renaissance architect sought to rival the mountain.
They raised successively the temple of the spirit and
the temple of the body. The analogy in literature is
naturally inexact ; Dante, however, sought to hang his
song from the absolute, the centre and source of light ;
art since Dante has for the most part built solidly from
the ground.

General formulas of art criticism serve at best to
suggest a train of thought, or a manner of examining
the individual works of the period. Such formulas are
not figures circumscribing the works of art, but points
from which to compute their dimensions.

The Renaissance is not a time, but a temperament.
Petrarch and Boccaccio have it. To the art of poetry
they bring nothing distinctive : Petrarch refines but de-

MONTCORBIER, ALIAS VILLON 177

energizes. In England, Gower had written pleasantly,
and u Romance," the romance of the longer narratives,
had come to full fruit in Chaucer. Where Dante is a
crystallization of many mediaeval elements, his own
intensity the cause of their cohesion, Chaucer comes
as through a more gradual, gentler process, like some
ultimate richer blossom on that bough which brought forth
Beroul, Thomas, Marie, Crestien, Wace, and Gower.
He is part, some will say, of the humanistic revolt.
There was no humanistic revolt. Boccaccio and the
rest but carry on a paganism which had never expired.

After all these fine gentlemen, guardians of the
Arthurian Graal, prophets of Rome's rejuvenation, and
the rest, had been laid in their graves, there walked
the gutters of Paris one Fra^ois Montcorbier, poet
and gaol-bird, with no care whatever for the flowery
traditions of mediaeval art, and no anxiety to revive the
massive rhetoric of the Romans. Yet whatever seeds
of the Renaissance there may have been in Dante,
there were seeds or signs of a far more modern out-
break in the rhymes of this Montcorbier, alias Villon.

The minstrelsy of Provence is as the heart of Sir
Blancatz, and the later lords of song, in England and
in Tuscany, have eaten well of it. From Provence the
Tuscans have learned pattern; the Elizabethans a cer-
tain lyric quality ; Villon carries on another Provencal
tradition, that of unvarnished, intimate speech. I do
not imply that Villon is directly influenced by Provence,
but that some of his notes and fashions had been
already sounded in Provence. Thus the tone of some
of Arnaut Daniel's canzone 1 suggests the tone of some
of Villon's verses ; even as the form of the Provencal
canzon had suggested the form of the north French
Ballade.

1 Not those quoted in Chapter II.

178 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

Villon's abuse finds precedent in the lower type of
sirvente, with this distinction, that Villon at times says
of himself what the Provengals said only of one another.
For precedent of Villon's outspokenness one need not
seek so far as Provence. The French mystery plays
are not written in veiled words. To witness, this passage
from a Crucifixion play, when an angel says to God
the Father:

" Phe eternel, vous avex tort
E ben devete avoir vergogne.
Vostrefils bien amis est mart
E vous dor me* comme un ivrogne."

" Father eternal, you are wrong
And well should be shamed,
Your well beloved son is dead
And you sleep like a drunk."

Villon's art exists because of Villon. There is in him
no pretence of the man sacrificed to his labour. One
may define him unsatisfactorily by a negative comparison
with certain other poets, thus : Where Dante has
boldness of imagination, Villon has the stubborn per-
sistency of one whose gaze cannot be deflected from
the actual fact before him : what he sees, he writes.
Dante is in some ways one of the most personal of
poets ; he holds up the mirror to nature, but he is
himself that mirror.

Villon never forgets his fascinating, revolting self.
If, however, he sings the song of himself he is, thank
God, free from that horrible air of rectitude with which
Whitman rejoices in being Whitman. Villon's song is
selfish through self-absorption; he does not, as Whitman,
pretend to be conferring a philanthropic benefit on the
race by recording his own self-complacency. Human
misery is more stable than human dignity ; there is
more intensity in the passion of cold, remorse, hunger,

MONTCORBIER, ALIAS VILLON 179

and the fetid damp of the mediaeval dungeon than in
eating water melons. Villon is a voice of suffering, of
mockery, of irrevocable fact ; Whitman is the voice of
one who saith :

" Lo, behold, I eat water melons. When I eat water melons

the world eats water melons through me.
When the world eats water melons,
I partake of the world's water melons.
The bugs,
The worms,
The negroes, etc.,
Eat water melons ;
All nature eats water melons.
Those eidolons and particles of the Cosmos
Which do not now partake of water melons
Will at some future time partake of water melons.
Praised be Allah ! "

They call it optimism, and breadth of vision. There
is, in the poetry of Fra^ois Villon, neither optimism
nor breadth of vision.

Villon is shameless. Whitman, having decided that
it is disgraceful to be ashamed, rejoices in having
attained nudity.

Goethe, when the joys of taxidermy sufficed not to
maintain his self-respect, was wont to rejoice that there
was something noble and divine in being Kunstler. The
artist is an artist and therefore admirable, or noble, or
something of that sort. If Villon ever discovered this
pleasant mode of self-deception, he had sense enough
not to say so in rhyme. In fact, Villon himself may be
considered sufficient evidence seriously to damage this
artist-consoling theory.

Villon holds his unique place in literature because he
is the only poet without illusions. There are desil-
lusionnes, but they are different; Villon set forth with-
out the fragile cargo. Villon never lies to himself ; he

i8o THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

does not know much, but what he knows he knows :
man is an animal, certain things he can feel ; there is
much misery, man has a soul about which he knows
little or nothing. Helen, Heloise and Joan are dead, and
you will gather last year's snows before you find them.
Thus the " Ballade of Dead Ladies" (Rossetti's
translation) :

" Tell me now in what hidden way is

Lady Flora, the lovely Roman,
Where is Hipparchia and where is Thais,

Neither of them the fairer woman,
Where is Echo, beheld of no man,

Only heard on river and mere,
She whose beauty was more than human ?

But where are the snows of yester-year !

And where are Beatris, Alys, Hermengarde, and

" That good Joan whom Englishmen
At Rouen doomed, and burned her there !
Mother of God, where are they, where ?
But where are the snows of yester-year ! "

Of his further knowledge,

" I know a horse from a mule,
And Beatrix from Bellet,
I know the heresy of the Bohemians,
I know son, valet and man.
I know all things save myself alone."

Or in the " Grand Testament,"

" Je suis pecheur^je le scay bien
Pourtant Dieu ne veut pas ma mort."

" I am a sinner, I know it well,
However, God does not wish my death.'*

Or in the Ballade quoted :

" Je cognois mort qui nous consomme,
Je cognois toutfors que moi mesme."

MONTCORBIER, ALIAS VILLON 181

" And I know Death that downs us all,
I know all things save myself alone."

It is not Villon's art, but his substance, that pertains.
Where Dante is the supreme artist, Villon is incurious;
he accepts the forms of verse as unquestioningly as he
accepts the dogma and opinion of his time. If Dante
reaches out of his time, and by rising above it escapes
many of its limitations, Villon in some way speaks below
the voice of his age's convention, and thereby outlasts it.
He is utterly mediaeval, yet his poems mark the end
of mediaeval literature. Dante strives constantly for a
nobler state on earth. His greatness separates him
from his time, and the ordinary reader from his work.
The might of his imagination baffles the many. Villon
is destitute of imagination; he is almost destitute of
art; he has no literary ambition, no consciousness of
the fame hovering over him ; he has some slight vanity
in impressing his immediate audience, more in reaching
the ear of Louis XL by a ballade — this last under
pressure of grave necessity.

Much of both the Lesser and the Greater Testaments
is in no sense poetry ; the wit is of the crudest ; thief,
murderer,1 pander, bully to a whore, he is honoured
for a few score pages of unimaginative sincerity; he
sings of things as they are. He dares to show himself.
His depravity is not a pose cultivated for literary effect.
He never makes the fatal mistake of glorifying his sin,
of rejoicing in it, or of pretending to despise its opposite.
His

" Ne voient pan qtfauxfenestres"

is no weak moralizing on the spiritual benefits of
fasting.

1 This may be a little severe. Murder was not his habit ; we
believe, however, that he killed one man at the least.

1 82 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

The poignant stanzas in which this line occurs, are
comparable only to Lamb's graver and more plaintive,

" I have had playmates, I have had companions." l
GRAND TESTAMENT

XXIX

" Where are the gracious gallants
That I beheld in times gone by.
Singing so well, so well speaking,
So pleasant in act and in word.
Some are dead and stiffened,
Of them there is nothing more now.
May they have rest, but in Paradise,
And God save the rest of them.

1 " I have had playmates, I have had companions

In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days ;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have been laughing, I have been carousing,
Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies ;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I loved a Love once, fairest among women :
Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her —
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man :
Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly ;
Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces.

Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of my childhood,
Earth seem'd a desert I was bound to traverse,
Seeking to find the old familiar faces.

Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother,
Why wert not thou born in my father's dwelling I
So might we talk of the old familiar faces,

How some they have died, and some they have left me,
And some are taken from me ; all are departed ;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces."

CHARLES LAMB.

MONTCORBIER, ALUS VILLON 183

XXX

And some are become

God's mercy ! great lords and masters,

And others beg all naked

And see no bread, save in the windows ;

Others have gone into the cloisters

Of Celestin and of Chartreuse,

Shod and hosed like fishers of oysters.

Behold the divers state among them all."

Villon paints himself, as Rembrandt painted his own
hideous face ; his few poems drive themselves into one
in a way unapproached by the delicate art of a Daniel
or a Baudelaire. Villon makes excuses neither for God
nor for himself; he does not rail at providence because
its laws are not adjusted to punish all weaknesses except
his own. There is, perhaps, no more poignant regret
than that stanza in Le Grand Testament,

" J e plaings le temps de majeunesse" . . .

" I mourn the time of my youth,
When I made merry more than another,
Until the coming in of old age,
Which has sealed me its departure.
It is not gone on foot,
Nor on horseback ; alas ! and how then ?
Suddenly it has flown away,
And has left me nothing worth.
(Ef ne m'a laisse quelque don).

XXIII

Gone it is, and I remain

Poor of sense and of savoir,

Sad, shattered, and more black than ripe

Sans coin or rent or anything mine own."

He recognizes the irrevocable, he blames no one
but himself, he never wastes time in self-reproaches,
recognizing himself as the result of irrevocable causes.

1 84 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

" Necessitefaict gens mesprendre
E falm saillir le loup des boys"

" Necessity makes men run wry,
And hunger drives the wolf from wood."

He has the learning of the schools, or at least such
smattering of it as would be expected from a brilliant,
desultory auditor, but his wisdom is the wisdom of the
gutter. The dramatic imagination is beyond him, yet
having lived himself, he has no need to imagine what
life is. His poems are gaunt as the " Poema del
Cid " is gaunt ; they treat of actualities, they are un-
tainted with fancy ; in " the Cid " death is death, war
is war. In Villon filth is filth, crime is crime ; neither
crime nor filth is gilded. They are not considered as
strange delights and forbidden luxuries, accessible only
to adventurous spirits. Passion he knows, and satiety
he knows, and never does he forget their relation.

He scarcely ever takes the trouble to write anything
he does not actually feel. When he does, as in the
prayer made for his mother, the Lament for Master
Ythier's lost mistress, or the ballade for a young bride-
groom, it is at the request of a particular person ; and
the gaunt method in which he expresses his own feel-
ings does not desert him. Even here the expression is
that of such simple, general emotion that the verses can
hardly be regarded as dramatic; one almost imagines
Villon asking Ythier or the bridegroom what they want
written, and then rhyming it for them.

Thus this lay or rather rondeau which he bequeaths
to Master Ythier who has lost his mistress :

" Death, 'gainst thine harshness I appeal
That hath torn my leman from me,
Thou goest not yet contentedly
Though of sorrow of thee none doth me heal.

MONTCORBIER, ALIAS VILLON 185

No power or might did she e'er wield,
In life what harm e'er did she thee
Ah, Death !

" Two we ! that with one heart did feel,
If she is dead, how then, dividedly
Shall I live on, sans life in me.
Save as do statues 'neath thy seal
Thou Death ! "

(Par cczur in the last line of the original, has no equi-
valent in modern French or in English ; to dine " par
cceur," by heart, is to dine on nothing.)

The same tendencies are apparent in the following
Ballade, that which Villon made at the request of his
mother, " to be prayed to our lady."

(I give here Stanzas I. and III. from Rossetti's
translation.)

" Lady of Heaven and Earth, and therewithal
Crowned empress of the nether clefts of Hell, —
I, thy poor Christian, on thy name do call,
Commending me to thee, with thee to dwell,
Albeit in nought I be commendable.
But all mine undeserving may not mar
Such mercies as thy sovereign mercies are ;
Without the which (as true words testify)
No soul can reach thy heaven so fair and far,
Even in this faith I choose to live and die.

in

A pitiful poor woman, shrunk and old,

I am, and nothing learned in letter-lore,

Within my parish-cloister I behold

A painted Heaven where harps and lutes adore,

And eke an Hell whose damned folk seethe full sore

One bringeth fear, the other joy to me.

1 86 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

That joy, great goddess, make thou mine to be, —
Thou of whom all must ask it even as I ;
And that which faith desires, that let it see,
For in this faith I choose to live and die."

Another interesting translation of this poem is to be
found among the poems of the late J. M. Synge.

For the Ballade for the Bridegroom I refer to
Payne or Swinburne.

Villon is, if you will, dramatic in his " Regrets of the
Belle Heaulmiere," but his own life was so nearly that
of his wasted armouress, that his voice is at one with
hers. Indeed his own

" Je plains h temps de majeunesse"

might almost be part of this Ballade (stanzas i, 5 and
10 of Swinburne's translation).

" Meseemeth I heard cry and groan
That sweet who was the armourer's maid ;
For her young years she made sore moan,
And right upon this wise she said ;
4 Ah fierce old age with foul bald head
To spoil fair things thou art over fain ;
Who holdeth me ? Who ? Would God I were dead !
Would God I were well dead and slain !

And he died thirty years agone.
I am old now, no sweet thing to see ;
By God, though when I think thereon,
And of that good glad time, woe's me,
And stare upon my changed body
Stark naked, that has been so sweet,
Lean, wizen, like a small dry tree,
I am nigh mad with the pain of it.

MONTCORBIER, ALIAS VILLON 187

So we make moan for the old sweet days,
Poor old light women, two or three
Squatting above the straw-fire's blaze,
The bosom crushed against the knee,
Like fagots on a heap we be,
Round fires soon lit, soon quenched and done,
And we were once so sweet, even we !
Thus fareth many and many an one.' "

This Ballade is followed in the ' Testament ' by the
Ballade of "La Belle Heaulmiere aux filles de joie."

" Car vieilles ne cours ne estre
Ne que monnoye qu'on descrie"

" For old they have not course nor status
More than hath money that's turned in,"

is the tune of it.

In " La Grosse Margot " from " ce bourdel ou tenons
nostre estat," Villon casts out the very dregs of his
shame. But even here he is free from that putrescence
which reeks through the baser poems of Martial.

Many have attempted to follow Villon, mistaking a
pose for his reality. These searchers for sensation,
self-conscious sensualists and experimenters, have, I
think, proved that the " taverns and the whores " are
no more capable of producing poetry than are philosophy,
culture, art, philology, noble character, conscientious
effort, or any other panacea. If persistent effort and a
desire to leave the world a beautiful heritage, were
greatly availing, Ronsard, who is still under-rated, and
Petrarch, who is not, would be among the highest
masters. Villon's greatness is that he unconsciously
proclaims man's divine right to be himself, the only one of
the so-called "rights of man" which is not an artificial
product. Villon js no theorist, he is an objective fact.

1 88 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

He makes no apology — herein lies his strength ; Burns
is weaker, because he is in harmony with doctrines
that have been preached, and his ideas of equality are
derivative. Villon never wrote anything so didactic in
spirit as the " man's a man for a' that." He is scarcely
affected by the thought of his time, because he scarcely
thinks ; speculation, at any rate, is far from him. But
I may be wrong here. If Villon speculates, the end of
his speculation is Omar's age-old ending :

" Come out by the same door wherein I went."

" Rubiyat," xxvii.

At any rate, Villon's actions are the result of his
passions and his weaknesses. Nothing is " sicklied
o'er with the pale cast of thought."

As a type of debauchee he is eternal. He has sunk
to the gutter, knowing life a little above it ; thus he is
able to realize his condition, to see it objectively,
instead of insensibly taking it for granted.

Dante lives in his mind ; to him two blending
thoughts give a music perceptible as two blending
notes of a lute. He is in the real sense an idealist.
He sings of true pleasures ; he sings as exactly as
Villon ; they are admirably in agreement : Dante to
the effect that there are supernormal pleasures, enjoy-
able by man through the mind; Villon to the effect
that the lower pleasures lead to no satisfaction.

" e ne n? a laisse quelque don"
VILLON.

" Thenceforward was my vision mightier than the dis-
course," writes the Italian ; and Dante had gone living
through Hell, in no visionary sense. Villon lacked
energy to clamber out. Dante had gone on, fainting,
aided, erect in his own strength ; had gone on to sing
of things more difficult. Villon's poetry seems, when

MONTCORBIER, ALIAS VILLON 189

one comes directly from the " Paradiso," more vital,
more vivid ; but if Dante restrains himself, putting
the laments in the mouths of tortured spirits, they are
not the less poignant. He stands behind his characters,
of whom Villon might have made one.

Before we are swept away by the intensity of this
gamin of Paris, let us turn back to the words set in the
mouth of Bertrans of Altafort :

" Thus is the counterpass observed in me,"

or to the lament of her of Rimini. Whoever cares at
all for the art will remember that the words of this
lament sob as branches beaten by the wind :

" nessun magglor dolor e^
che ricordarsi del tempo f dice
nella miseria ; e do so* I tuo dottore"

The whole sound of the passage catches in the throat,
and sobs. Dante is many men, and suffers as many.
Villon cries out as one. He is a lurid canto of the
" Inferno," written too late to be included in the
original text. Yet had Dante been awaiting the execu-
tion of that death sentence which was passed against
him, although we might have had one of the most
scornful denunciations of tyranny the world has ever
known, we should have had no ballade of stark power
to match that which Villon wrote, expecting presently
to be hanged with five companions :

" Freres humains qul apres nous vivez"

Stanza I. and Stanza II., 1. 1-4, in Swinburne's trans-
lation.

" Men, brother men, that after us yet live,
Let not your hearts too hard against us be ;
For if some pity of us poor men ye give,
The sooner God shall take of you pity.

THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

Here we are, five or six strung up, you see,
And here the flesh that all too well we fed
Bit by bit eaten and rotten, rent and shred,
And we the bones grow dust and ash withal ;
Let no man laugh at us discomforted,
But pray to God that he forgive us all.

ii

If we call upon you, brothers, to forgive,

You should not hold our prayer in scorn, though we

Were slain by law ; ye know that all alive

Have not wit alway to walk righteously."

Dante's vision is real, because he saw it. Villon's
verse is real, because he lived it; as Bertran de
Born, as Arnaut Marvoil, as that mad poseur Vidal, he
lived it. For these men life is in the press. No brew
of books, no distillation of sources will match the tang
of them.

NOTE. — It is most surprising that the similarities between Villon's
ballades of " Dead Ladies " and " Dead Lords " and " Las Coplas " of
his Spanish contemporary, G. Manrique, have not been more gener-
ally noted.

CHAPTER VIII

THE QUALITY OF LOPE DE VEGA

THE art of literature and the art of the theatre are
neither identical nor concentric. A part of the art of
poetry is included in the complete art of the drama.
Words are the means of the art of poetry ; men
and women moving and speaking are the means of
drama. A play, to be a good play, must come over the
footlights.

A composition, so delicate that actual presentation of
it must in its very nature spoil the illusion, is not
drama. In a play, ordinary words can draw power
from the actor; the words of poetry must depend
upon themselves. A good play may, or may not, be
literature or poetry. In a study of poetry, one is con-
cerned only with such plays as happen to contain
poetry ; in a study of literature, one is concerned only
with such plays as may be enjoyably read. The aims
of poetry and drama differ essentially in this : poetry
presents itself to the individual, drama presents itself
to a collection of individuals. Poetry also presents
itself to any number of individuals, but it can make its
appeal in private, seriatim. Drama must appeal to a
number of individuals simultaneously. This requires
no essential difference in their subject-matters, but it
may require a very great difference in the manner of
presentation.

It cannot be understood too clearly that the first
requirement of a play is that it hold the audience. If
it does not succeed in this it may be a work of genius, or

192 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

it may be, or contain a number of excellent things, but it
is not a good play. Some of the means whereby a
play holds its audience vary from age to age ; the
greater part of them do not. The aesthetic author
may complain that these means are mere trickery, but
they are in reality the necessary limitations of the
dramatic form. They are, for the most part, devices
for arousing expectation, for maintaining suspense, or
devices of surprise. They are, it is true, mechanical or
ingenious, but so is technique of verse itself.

Rhyme, for instance, is in a way mechanical, and it
also arouses expectation — an expectation of the ear
for repetition of sound. In the delayed rhyming of
Daniel, we have a maintaining of suspense. In every
very beautiful or unusual arrangement of words we
have " denouement " — surprise.

The so-called tricks of the stage are its rhymes and
its syntax. They are, perhaps, more easily analysed
than the subtler technique of lyric poetry, but they
cannot be neglected. After these restrictions, or
conventions, or laws of the drama have been mastered,
the author can add his beauty and his literary excel-
lence. But without these, his excellences are as far
from being drama, as a set of disconnected, or
wrongly connected wheels and valves, are from being
an engine. All great plays consist of this perfected
mechanism, plus poetry, or philosophy, or some further
excellence which is of enduring interest.

Because it is very difficult to write good poetry, and
because the dramatist has so many other means at his
command, he usually relapses into inferior poetry or
neglects it altogether. When the paraphernalia of the
stage was less complicated, this neglect was less easy.

The sources of English drama have been traced by
Chambers in his " History of the Mediaeval Stage," to

THE QUALITY OF LOPE DE VEGA 193

the satisfaction of everyone. In Spain the sources and
prime influences of the drama were : the church cere-
monies, the elaborate services for Christmas and Easter,
which result in the divers sorts of religious plays,
saints' plays, and the like ; the dialogue forms of
the Troubadour poetry, developing in loas, and uen-
tremes " or skits ; and later, the effect of the travelling
Italian company of one Ganasa, who brought the
" Comedia del Arte " into Spain.

In this " Comedia del Arte " one finds the art of
drama, the art of the stage; a complete art, as yet
unalloyed by any admixture of the literary art. The
comedians chose their subject ; and each man for him-
self, given some rough plan, worked out his own
salvation — to wit, the speeches of the character he
represented. That is to say, you had a company of
actor-authors, making plays as they spoke them.
Hamlet's " O reform it altogether, and let those that
play your clowns speak no more than is set down for
them" (iii. 2), shows that the effects of this custom
lasted in England until Shakespear's time, at least in
connection with " character " parts.

According to Lope de Vega, " comedies" in Spain
are no older than Rueda. If one is to quibble over
origins, one must name Gomez Manrique (1412-91) as
author of liturgical drama of the simplest sort. He
was not the originator, merely a first author whose
name we know; and Juan del Encina (1468-1534) for
"eclogas" or " skits."

"Calisto and Meliba" (the "Celestina") was
published 1499 ; and is probably by Fernando de Rojas.
It is a novel in dialogue of twenty-two acts, un-
stageable.

The Portuguese, Gil Vincente, lived from 1470-
1 540 ; it is not known that his works were ever

194 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

played in Spain. But Lope de Rueda (1558 circa),
gold-beater, actor-manager, and playwright, began the
theatre.

Whatever may be said to the credit of these
originators, there is no interest except for the special
student in any Spanish plays earlier than those of
Lope de Vega,1 and Lope certainly found his stage in a
much more rudimentary condition than Shakespear
found the stage of England. Whatever be the intrinsic
merit of Lope's work, this much is certain: he gave
Spain her dramatic literature, and from Spain Europe
derived her modern theatre. In his admirable essay on
Lope, Fitz-Maurice Kelly says : " Schiller and Goethe
combined, failed to create a national theatre at Weimar ;
no one but Lope could have succeeded in creating a
national theatre at Madrid."

Shakespear is a consummation ; nothing that is based
on Shakespear excels him. Lope is a huge inception ;
Calderon and Tirso de Molina, Alarcon, De Castro,
have made their enduring reputations solely by finishing
what Lope had neglected to bring to perfection. They
may excel him in careful workmanship, never in dramatic
energy. When I say that Lope's plays are the first
which are of general interest, I mean that he is the first
who, having mastered the machinery of the drama,
added to his plays those excellences which give to his
works some enduring interest.

Lope was born 1562, led a varied, interesting life,
which is best told by H. A. Rennert in his " Life of
Lope de Vega." He wrote a multitude of miscellaneous
works, and from fifteen hundred to two thousand plays,

1 With the possible exception of one or two plays of Torres
Naharro, born before their due time. I make this exception on the
good authority of Mr Fitz-Maurice Kelly, as I have not read the
plays.

THE QUALITY OF LOPE DE VEGA 195

of which about four hundred remain to us. Some of the
plays are still as fresh and as actable as on the day they
were written. Considering the haste of their composi-
tion, it is not remarkable that many others possess
merely antiquarian interest. Montalban testifies to
Lope's having written fifteen acts in fifteen consecutive
days, and many of the plays were probably composed
within twenty-four hours.

Lope is bound to the Middle Ages much more closely
than are the Elizabethans by reason of his religious
plays, a form of art practically uninfluenced by the
Renaissance, and already out of fashion in London.
Such plays were greatly in demand in Lope's time, and
for long after, at Madrid. They attain their highest
development at the hands of Calderon. Lope's religious
plays scarcely belong to world literature, and it is not
on their account that one seeks to resurrect the damaged
shade of their author.

From my scant knowledge of the English religious
plays, I should say that they are more vigorous than
those written in Spanish; this does not mean that
Lope's obras santos are without interest, and UE1
Serafin Humano," his dramatization of the "Fioretti"
of St Francis is certainly entertaining.

In the opening scenes of the play we find Francisco,
an over-generous young man, engaged in a flirtation
with certain ladies of no great dignity. Say these ladies
among themselves : " Ah, this is a new cock-sparrow ;
this will be easy." The ladies' "escudero," or serving-
man, proceeds to " work " Francisco for inordinate tips.
The lower action runs its course. Francisco gives his
clothes to a beggar, and sees a vision ; here the piety
of the play begins. Francisco takes the cross; a
" voice " tells him to give up the crusade, that he must
fight a better battle where he is ; and in this atmosphere

196 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

of voices and visions the play proceeds, ending in
Brother Gil's vision of the " holy tree."

If Lope's cycle of historical plays do not match
Shakespear's cycle of the English kings, it is quite
certain that they can be compared to nothing else.
From the opening cry in " Amistad Pagada" :

" Al arma, at arma capitanes fuertes,
A I arma capitanes valerosos"

through the sequence of the plays overflowing the
five volumes (vii. to xi.) of Pelayo's huge edition, the
spirit of Spain and the spirit of the " romanceros " is
set loose upon the boards. It is of u bellicosa Espana,"
more invincible than " Libia fiera," to quote the Roman
consul Andronius in " Amistad Pagada," and of Leon,
" already conquered, its walls razed to the ground,
coming furious from the mountains."

There is about the cycle no effect of pageantry or of
parade ; it is a stream of swift-moving men, intent on
action. The scope of the cycle may be judged from
the following titles : " King Vamba," " The Last Goth,"
" The Deeds of Bernardo del Carpio's Youth," " Fernan
Gonzalez," " El Nuevo mondo descubier por Cristobal
Colon." This last is, I believe, the finest literary pre-
sentation of Columbus known to exist. It is noble and
human, and there is admirable drawing in the scene
where Columbus is mocked by the King of Portugal.
The further main action runs as follows : — Bartolomeo
brings the news of England's refusal to finance the
venture. " Imagination " appears, after the manner of
the Greek deus ex machina ; and there is a play within
the play, a little " morality " of Providence, Idolatry,
and Christian religion. Columbus finally gets an
audience with King Ferdinand. Fragments of the
dialogue are as follows :

THE QUALITY OF LOPE DE VEGA 197

Colon. The conquest of Granada brought to happy end,
Now is the time to gain the world.

The crux ?

Lord, money, the money is the all,

The master and the north and the ship's track,

The way, the intellect, the toil, the power,

Is the foundation and the friend most sure.

The King. War with Granada has cost me

A sum, which you, perchance, may know.

But the money is finally provided.

Act II. opens with the mutiny on shipboard. The
eloquence of the strike leaders is of the sort one may
hear at Marble Arch on any summer evening :

First Mutineer. Arrogant capitan
Of a band deceived,
Who in your cause
Are nearer unto death
Than to the land ye seek,
Whereto, through thousand thousands
Of leagues and of oppressions,
You drag them o'er
A thousand deaths to feed
The fishes of such distant seas.
Where's this new world ?
O maker of humbugs,

0 double of Prometheus,
What of these dry presages
Is not this all high sea ?
What of your unseen land,
Your phantom conquest ?

1 ask no argosies.

Let go your boughs of gold
And give us barley beards
So they be dry.

The other mutineers continue with ridicule and sar-
casm. Frey Buyl saves Columbus, and land is sighted.
The third act is of the triumphant return.

igS THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

u Los novios de Hornachuelos " (an incident in the
reign of Henry III.) contains one of the tensest scenes
of all romantic drama ; the greater part of this play is
delightful comedy. Act I. sc. i :

Mendo (servant). Do you not fear the king ?

Lope Melindez. The power of the king is not thus great.

My whim serves me for law.

There's no king else for me.

Lope Melindez and none other

Is king in Estremadura.

If Henry gain to rule,

Castile is wide.
Mendo. You speak notable madness.

Doth not the whole wide world

Tremble for Henry Third,

That sickly one

Whose valour's past belief (peregrino).

Melindez threatens his squire, and Mendo replies :
"Those who must please on all occasions must be
chameleons, for they must clothe themselves and seem
their master's colours."

From which lines we learn that the king is an invalid,
that Lope Melindez, "the wolf" of Es.tremadura, is a
braggart and rebel, and that his squire is a philosopher
in fustian.

Continuing, we find that Melindez has in him " such
might of love that he is affrighted of it " ; that there is
a gentlewoman called for her beauty the Star of Estre-
madura, " Estrella de Estremadura," who is " the cipher
of all human beauty." [It is always diverting to
notice the manner in which Shakespear and Lope
habitually boil down the similes of love into epigram-
matic metaphor."]

Next a servant announces : " The King-at-Arms of
the King," with a letter.

Melindez receives him, and says he will reply at

THE QUALITY OF LOPE DE VEGA 199

leisure. The King-at-Arms replies that the King
demands an immediate answer :

Melindez. Ah ! punctual fellows,

The Kings-at-Arms !
King-at-Arms. Henry

Doth thee no small honour

When for Ambassador

He sendeth such an one as L

We Kings-at-Arms

Move on no lesser service

Than to bear challenges

To Emperors or Kings.
Melindez. The King defies me, then !

The King-at-Arms replies that the King challenges
only equals. The letter is a summons for Melindez
to present himself at Court with four servants and
no more.

Melindez. Oh, Mendo
I'm for throwing
This King-at-Arms from a
Balcony, into the castle moat.
He becomes too loquacious.

[Melindez sits. The King-at-Arms sits.

Melindez refuses to obey the summons, makes a long
speech to the effect that from his castle, which beholds
the sun's birth, he sees no land which hath other lord
than himself, and that he has arms for four thousand.
After having disburdened himself, he becomes polite,
but the King-at-Arms will neither rest nor eat.

Melindez. Heaven go with you.
King-at-Arms. The King will take satisfaction.
Melindez. Sword to sword, let's see
Who's vassal and who's King !

[Exit King-at-Arms.
Melindez. I'm for Hornachuelos.

Scene 2 is at Hornachuelos. Estrella enters, and
her character is in part shown by her attire.

200 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

(" Enter Estrella, with javelin, sword, dagger, and
plumed sombrero.")

This charming gentlewoman is marrying off a couple
of her vassals tenant who have not the slightest desire
to be so united. The manner of their unwillingness
may be here gathered :

("They take hands without turning round, and
Mariana gives Berueco a kick which makes him roll.")
Then Mariana :

I'll give you such a blow
As will make you spit
Teeth for two days.

The act ends with a speech of Estrella's :

Lope Melindez, if love is a flame,
Then am I snow frozen in the Alps.

In the beginning of the second act the King sees
Estrella, and she falls in love with him. The King-at-
Arms has delivered Melindez' answer to the King, who
rides to Melindez' castle. Then comes the great scene,
the duel between two kinds of strength, it is Lope's
thesis for right of will and personality.

Enter servant.
Three horses with riders
Who would speak with you ;
One has entered !
Melindez. Great freedom, by God !

Enter King Henry III. alone.
Henry III. Which of the two

Calls himself Melindez,

I have wished to know him.
Melindez. I call myself Melindez.
Henry III. I have a certain business

Of which I come to speak with you,

Because I love you.

It is of importance

That we be alone.

THE QUALITY OF LOPE DE VEGA 201

Melindez. Leave us. [Exit servants.

Henry. Fasten the door.
Melindez. How fastidious we are !

( presumably after locking if)

It is locked.

Henry. Take this chair, to please me.
Melindez. I sit.
Henry. Then listen.

Melindez. I already listen,

And with wonder.
Henry. El enfermo rey Enrique

(The sickly King Henry).

The speech is too long to quote in full. It summarizes
the King's reign, begun at the age of fourteen, fraught
with all difficulty. It tells of a kingdom set to rights and
order drawn from civic chaos, the purport being : such
has been my life, such have been its trials, who are you,
Melindez, to stand against me, who to jeopardize the wel-
fare of the kingdom by making it necessary for me to
leave it in the hands of subordinates ? The speech ends:

Henry. . . . Lope Melindez, I am

[The King here rises from his chair and grasps his

sword. Lope removes bis hat.
Enrique, alone we are.
Draw your sword ! for I would
Know between you and me,
Being in your house,
The two of us in this locked room,
Who in Castile deserves
To be king, and who
Wolf-vassal of Estremadura.
Show yourself now to me
Haughty and valorous,
Since you boast so much
In my absence. Come !
For my heart is sound
Though my body be sickly,
And my heart spurts the Spanish blood
Of the descendants of Pelayo !

202 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

Melindez. My Lord, no more,

Your face without knowing you gives terror.
Mad have I been.
Blind I went.
Pardon ! Sefior

If I can please you with tears and surrender.
You have my arms crossed.
My steel at your feet,
And my lips also.

[He casts his sword at the king's feet and kisses the ground.
[Henry sets his foot upon Melindez' head.

Henry. Lope Melindez, thus are humbled the gallant necks

of haughty vassals.
[The king trembles with the chill of the quartian ague. He walks.

Chance has brought on

The Quartian, have you

A bed near.
Melindez. In the room below

The floor you tread,

But it's small sphere

For such a sovran king.
Henry. Open

And tell my servants

To come undress me,

For by my trusted valour

I would pass the night

In your house.
Melindez. Not in vain

Do the Castillians tremble at you,

O Enrique, terror of the world.

CURTAIN.

In the third act we return to comedy. The King
refuses to marry Estrella, saying among other things
that he is an invalid. Estrella and Melindez are
ordered to marry each other, and the low life troubles
of Berueco and Mariana are travestied in the higher
action. Berueco and Mariana have come to blows,
Estrella and Melindez shoot across the stage play-
ing the same game with swords, Melindez, thinking

THE QUALITY OF LOPE DE VEGA 203

the King has tricked him and Estrella, naturally resenting
the imputation. The King unravels the entanglement
by divorcing the peasants and promising Estrella
another husband.

Another delightful play of this his tori co-romantic sort is
" Las Almenas de Toro." It has an additional interest for
us in that Ruy Diaz appears in it, the time being slightly
earlier than that treated in the " Poema del Cid."

The play in brief outline is as follows :

King Ferdinand had divided his kingdom at his death,
leaving the cities Toro and Zamora to his daughters,
Urraca and Elvira. The new King, Sancho, is not
content. At the opening of the play we find the King,
the Cid, and the Conde Ancures before the gates of
Toro, which Elvira has closed through fear of her
brother. The Cid advises the King to retire and
return unarmed. He advises the King to let the
sisters keep their cities. The King rejects this counsel,
and the Cid is sent forward as ambassador.

Elvira comes forth upon the city wall, and replies
with delightful irony to the King's proposition that she
become a nun.

Elvira. Tell him, my Cid,

That I have turned Toro into a cloister
(Suffice it to see that the gate is well locked).
It is unfitting that a cloister
Be opened to a secular person.

The King sees his sister on the battlements, and,
without knowing who she is, falls in love with her.

King. On the battlements of Toro
There passed a damozel, or
To speak more truly
'Twas the sun's self passed us,
Fair the form and light the passing.

204 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

For her whom I saw on the wall, that subtlety
wherewith above astronomy painteth her divers
sights upon the azure mantle of the sky, hath
made me such that I believe many imagined
things should be true.

The Cid tells him that it is his sister.

King. An ill flame be kindled in her !

Pastoral action is brought into the play as relief,
" contra el arte," as Lope says in his preface.

King Sancho attacks Toro and is repulsed. At the
beginning of the second act Bellido Dolfos begins to
plot. Then, under cover of night (a purely imaginary
night) two soldiers with guitars come forth on the
battlements. Lope is constantly opposed to new-
fangled scenery and constantly scenic in imagination.
Here the soldiers singing while the siege is on is
charming realism.

Dolfos, with a thousand men, approaches and pre-
tends to be Diego Ordonez with relief from Zamora.
The ruse succeeds, the town is taken, and Elvira flees.

Dolfos, who had been promised the king's sister in
marriage if he took the town, is jealous, and says that
the King, or Ancures, or the Cid, has hidden Elvira to
cheat him and prevent her marrying below her station.
In the meantime the pastoral action runs its course.
The Duque de Borgona, travelling incognito, meets
with Elvira, who has disguised herself in country
clothing. The people, despite the improbability of the
minor entanglement, are convincingly drawn.

Bellido Dolfos finally murders King Sancho. Toro
declares for his brother Alfonso,1 but Elvira returns,
and the town receives her in triumph.

1 This is Alfonso " el de Leon" with whom we are familiar in the
" Poema."

THE QUALITY OF LOPE DE VEGA 205

" La Estrella de Sevilla " is usually listed as a play of
the Cloak and Sword. It is also a problem play of
advanced disposition. The question set is this : Can a
woman marry the man she loves if he have killed her
brother, who was his friend? The King is unjustly
angered with Butos Tabera, the brother, and secretly
orders Sancho Ortiz to slay him. Ortiz is bound in
duty and honour to obey his King. Lope decides that
the marriage is impossible. The handling of royalty
in this play is most interesting. The King, Sancho el
bravo, is a man subject to the passions, but the incentive
to connect evil desire with action conies always from
the courtier Arias, thus the evil proceeds, not from the
King, but through him.

In reading a play of Lope's it is always worth while
to notice which character precipitates the action. Some-
times the entire movement is projected by the gracioso.
In this play Ortiz' serving-man is used solely for comic
relief, and with a fine precision. His role is very short ;
he appears only about eight times, and each time at the
exact moment when the tragic strain begins to oppress
the audience. Almost imperceptibly he fades out of
the play. Lope is past-master of u relief," and here it
serves but to keep the audience sensitive to the tragic,
unjaded.

When Ortiz is arrested for murder, he refuses to
divulge the cause, and the King is forced to confess
that the death is by his order.

Estrella pardons Ortiz, but will not marry him. The
dignity of this conclusion is sufficient refutation of
those who say that Lope wrote nothing but melodrama,
and to please the groundlings.

Three of Lope's surviving plays accord us opportunity
for direct comparison with the works of his English
contemporaries.

206 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

The first is a Castelvines y Monteses," based on
Bandello's novel of "Romeo and Julietta," and the
second, " La Nueva Ira de Dios y Gran Tamorlan
de Persia."

The construction of this play is perhaps more skilful
than that of Marlowe's " Tamberlaine." One misses, I
think, the sense of Marlowe's unbridled personality
moving behind the words ; yet there is a tense vigour
of phrase in this play of Lope's, and more lines than
one wherethrough Marlowe himself might have poured
his turbulence of spirit :

Thus Tamorlan :

" Call me the crooked iron,
Lame am I and mighty ! "

And again :

" El mundo mi viene estrecho"
" The world groweth narrow for me."

And:

" I've to make me a city

Of gold and silver, and my house of the bodies of kings,
Be they rocks of valour."

In the first act we find Bayaceto, the Grand Turk, in
love with Aurelia, daughter of the Greek emperor.

Lope naturally shows us El Gran Turco carrying
on his courtship in propria persona ; strolling in the
emperor's garden in the cool of the day he is taken
capthe. This imparts a characteristic briskness to the
opening scenes of the play. Bayaceto proclaims himself,
and is accepted by the Emperor. The betrothal takes
place with ceremony.

Tamorlan is increasing in power. Lelia Eleazara, a
Turkish lady in love with Bayaceto, curses him at his
betrothal. Bayaceto boasts to Aurelia that to please

THE QUALITY OF LOPE DE VEGA 207

her, he will go out to conquer the world.1 News of
Tamorlan is brought, and the act closes.

Act II. (sound drums, and in form of squadrons there
go forth by one door half the company clad in skins,
Tamorlan behind them; and by the other door the
other half, clad as Moors, Bayaceto behind them).

Tamorlan. I am the Tamorlan,
I am the celestial wrath,
I am the burning ray,
Cause of death and dismay
To whomso looketh upon me
In mine anger.

Hi/o de ml mlsmo y de mis hechos"
Son of myself and of my deed."

Bayaceto is defeated in battle and taken prisoner.
Vanse (exit).

Scene 2. Presumably the place of the emperor.
Aurelia, in soliloquy —

Aurella. Presages sad, how now
Do ye ill-treat me.
Meseems ye do announce
Mine end with bale and grief
Unto my new-sprung life ;
Grant comfort, ye,
Unless my death be fated
For this day.
So long the fray !

Aliatar brings news of the battle, with this fine
description :

" One sea, fair April
Mirroring the sky
With plumes and pennons
And resplendent arms."

1 The passage presumably corrresponds to Marlowe's

" To entertain devine Zenocrite "
and falls below it.

208 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

Then, Aurelia, on hearing the outcome,

" No time is this for weeping. On !
Reform our host.
Call from the farms
The aged ! On to Belaquia.
Home, lives, and goods
To bloody smoke be turned,
Till one flame lap the vale
That saw the birth
Of this vile Tamorlan, . . ."
(Tanse.)

Then comes out Elizara, clothed as a madman, and
Ozman. Elizara wishes to free Bayaceto by going to
Tamorlan disguised as a buffoon.

The next scene shows Tamorlan mocking Bayaceto,
who is prisoned in a cage. Elizara enters ; then enter
the ambassadors from twenty-nine kings, wishing to
ransom Bayaceto : they are refused.

Act III., Tamorlan is overthrown and dies. Elizara
becomes a Christian nun.

The play here follows the usual lines of the plays
of Spanish and Moorish contest, or the Chanson de
Roland, for that matter. This sort of conquest play
is, of course, no longer suitable for the stage.

Lope's work differs from Shakespear's in that it faces
in two directions : thus, this " Tamorlan " is a last
exhalation of that spirit which produced the Cant ares
de Gesta. The saints' plays are a transference to the
stage of a literary form which had been long popular.
The Spanish historical plays are far more vital than
either of these, but their roots are in the older ballades
and romances. (The term romance is applied in
Spanish to a particular form of short narrative poem.)
The plays of Lope, which are prophetic of the future
stage, are the plays of the "cloak and sword." The
best of these are as fresh and playable to-day as they

THE QUALITY OF LOPE DE VEGA 209

were in 1600. It is on this pattern that Beaumarchais
has written his " Barber of Seville," and Mr Shaw his
"Arms and the Man." It is true that Mr Shaw has
introduced chocolate creams, and electric bells in
Bulgaria, and certain other minor details, but the stock
situations and the sprightly spirit of impertinence date
at least from Lope. The most diverting proof of this is
a El Despredo Agradecido" which might have been
written — bar certain vagaries of chronos — by Bernard
Shaw in collaboration with Joachim du Bellay The
action begins with characteristic swiftness.

Personas.

DON BERNARDO (from Seville).
SANCHO, his servant.

LlSARDA ,1 .

,-,- ' V sisters.

J^LORELAjJ

INES, their maid.
LUCINDO, their brother.
DON ALEXANDRO, their father.
MENDO, servant of this family.
OCTAVIO, betrothed to Lisarda.

Acto Primo.

(Come forth Bernardo and Sancho, with drawn swords
and bucklers.)

Bernardo. What a rotten jump !

Sancho. The walls were high.

Bernardo. I should have thought you would have leapt the better,
since you were the more afraid.

Sancho. Who isn't afraid of the law, and we just leavin' a man
dead ?

Bernardo. Carelessness, I admit. Let who lives, live keenly. It's
a fine house we've come into.

Sancho. I'm flayed entirely. The wall's cost me blood.

Bernardo. In the darkness I can see no more than that this is a
garden.

Sancho. And what are we going to do about it ?

Bernardo. To get out, Sancho, is what I should wish to do.
o

2io THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

Sancho. If they hear us, they'll take us for thieves.

Bernardo. Zeal comes to men in straitened circumstance.

Sancho. It's the devil ever made us leave Seville !

Bernardo. The parlour, shall we go in ?

Sancho. Yes.

Bernardo. Women speak.

Sancho. Notice that they say they are going to bed.

Bernardo. But what shall we do ?

Sancho. We shall see what they are, from behind this hanging.

Twenty-eight lines have carried us thus far.
The shifting of the embarrassment indicated in the
next to the last line is as keen as it is characteristic.
Come forth Lisarda, Florela, Ines, and ladies.

Lisarda. Put the light on this table, and show that tray. Take off
these roses, for I don't want them to wither.

Florela. How dull Octavio was !

Lisarda. There is nothing that bores one so much as a relative
ready to be a husband and not a lover.

Florela. Take this chain, Ines. . . .

And so on until

(Sane ho' s buckler falls.)

Lisarda. Good Lord ! what noise is this ?
Florela. What fell ?
Ines. Don't be afraid.
Ltsarda. Lock the door, Ines.
Ines. Which one ?

Lisarda. That which opens into the garden.
Ines. It is open.

Lisarda. Good care you take (of us) !
Ines. We used to lock it later than this.

Lisarda. Apologize, and get to work. Take this light, look quickly.
What fell ?

Ines. What is this ?

Lisarda. How ?

Ines. This buckler here !

Lisarda. My brother's guard would be like it.

Ines. Yes ! And since when have the curtains worn shoes ?

Lisarda. Jesus mil veces ! Thieves !

THE QUALITY OF LOPE DE VEGA 211

Bernardo comes out, and with eloquent apologies
casts himself on their mercy. Lope does justice to the
delicate situation. Finally Lisarda says, " Ines, lock
them both in this room, and bring me the key " ; and
then follows a charming bit of impertinence that even
G. B. S. has not outdone.

Bernardo. Ines, I shall not sleep.

Ines. Can you do with this light and a book ?

Bernardo. Depends on the book.

Ines. Part 26 of Lope.

Bernardo. Bah ! supposititious works printed with his name on Jem.

The further entanglement of the comedy is delightful.
I have in part explained the characters in the list of
dramatis persona.

Bernardo has come from Seville with a letter for
Octavio, whose cousin, Bernardo's brother, is about to
marry. Octavio hears voices in Lisarda's house on the
night of Bernardo's adventure, and is filled with
jealousy. When Bernardo on leaving delivers his
letter and narrates his strange adventures, speaking of
the lovely lady and his departure, he says, in Lope's
inimitable Spanish :

" Salt, no se si dlga enamorado,
Pero olvidado del amorpasado."

" I came out, I do not know that one would say, in love,
But forgetful of past love."

Or,

" Not enamoured, but forgetful of past enamourment."

The cadence and rhyme of the Spanish gives it a
certain sauvity which I cannot reproduce.

Nothing gives less idea of a play than an outline of
its plot: the feelings of Octavio during Bernardo's
narration can be readily guessed at, and Lope well
displays them.

212 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

Both sisters fall in love with Bernardo, and the
scene between them reminds one of a similar encounter
in Wilde's " Importance of Being Earnest."

The fact that women were at this time, contrary to
the English custom, permitted on the Spanish stage ; and
Lope's greater familiarity with a sex, which he married
frequently and with varying degrees of formality,
accounts for a fuller development of the feminine roles
than one finds in the contemporary English plays.
Lope is no mere wit and juggler. Lisarda's speech,
when her love for Bernardo seems wholly thwarted
by circumstance, brings into the play that poetry
which is never far from the pen of "the Phoenix
of Spain."

The following translation is appalling in its crudity.
Lisarda is walking in the garden where Bernardo had
entered the night before :

" Flowers of this garden
Where entered Don Bernardo
On whom I look, a sunflower
On the sun that is my doom ;
Rose, carnation, jasmine,
That with a life securer
Take joy in your swift beauty
Tho' ye make in one same day
Your green sepulchres
Of the cradles you were born in ;
Yet would I speak with you,
Since my joy found beginning
And ending in one day,
Whence took it birth and death,
And I await like ending.
A flower I was as ye,
I was born as ye are born,
And if ye know not rightly
That ye hold your life but lightly,
Learn, O flowers, of me.

THE QUALITY OF LOPE DE VEGA 213

The light of all your colours,

And the pomp of all your leaves,

The blue, the white, the ruddy,

Paint loves and jealousies.

For this, O flowers, ye pass away,

Counsel I give and example.

For yesterday I was, what I am not to-day,

And if to-day I am not what I was yesterday

Now may ye learn from me,

What things do pass away

With the passing of one day.

As ye are, I was certain

That my fair hope would flower.

But lo ! love's blossoms alway

Bring forth uncertain fruit.

Aspic living, amor hidden —

Nay, I learnt it not from you —

This killed and said to me :

Whoso look on me now and find me

Changed so, would not believe

The marvel that I was, but yesterday.

Be ye with colours lovely

As those that ye saw love in,

With the perfumed exhalations

That are comets of the flower.

And O, ye easy splendours,

That I stand invoking,

If I be marvellous to-day,

Consider what yesterday gave shadow

To the sun, with what I was

Who to-day am not my shadow even."

The play winds on through the comic labyrinths.
The man whom Bernardo killed for following his
former flame from Seville, turns out not to have been
killed, but appears as Lucindo, Lisarda's brother. He
and his father try to marry Bernardo to the wrong
sister: the marriage of Lisarda to Octavio seems
inevitable. Sancho and Mendo, in their love for Ines,
parody the main action. The high-flown language of

214 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

the times' gallantry is mixed with Sancho's cynical
matter-of-fact humour. Lope's graciosos are often
without a sense of humour ; at such times their remarks
are usually unconscious, are humorous because of
their position in the play : the position of the
gracioso in Lope's plays is that occupied by Sancho
Panza in "Don Quixote." The chauffeur in "Man
and Superman " retains some of the grdciosds functions.
It is part of Lope's mastery of theatrical technique that
he seems to whisper privately to each member of his
audience, uWhat fools are the rest! But you and /
see the thing in its true colours." Thus, to the young
romantic, he seems to say, " Behold this gallant, whose
nobility and ideals are so misunderstood by his vulgar
serving-man " ; and to the gracioso in the audience he
says, uThis ' high falutin' ' romance, these lofty ideals,
this code of honour ! bah ! what nonsense it is ! " It
is flattery, of course, not the subtlest, but practical
flattery, harnessed to Lope's theatrical purpose.

Despite their number, Lope's plays are not filled
with wooden figures, nor masks, nor types, but with
individuals. There is repetition, small wonder and
small harm ; even in Shakespear, Toby Belch and
Falstaff are to all intents the same character.

Any comparison of Shakespear and Lope must be
based to some extent on their distinctly individual
treatment of the same theme — that is, Bandello's tale
of Romeo and Juliette. The comparison is a fair one,
for if " Romeo and Juliette " is not one of Shakespear's
very greatest plays, it is one-fiftieth part of his work,
while Lope's " Castelvines y Monteses " is less than one-
fifteen-hundredth part of his.

An English translation of Lope's play by F. W.
Cosens appeared in 1869 (Chiswick Press, London),
for private distribution ; this translation should be re-

THE QUALITY OF LOPE DE VEGA 215

printed, though Cosens is, I think, wrong in attempting
a Shakespearian diction in his rendering of Lope's
Spanish. Lope's dramatic convention differs from
Shakespear's in this : Shakespear's convention is that of
ennobled diction. His speech is characteristic of his
people, but is more impressive than ordinary speech.
Works of art attract us by a resembling unlikeness.
Lope's convention is that of rhymes and assonance —
that is, his lines differ from ordinary speech in that
they are more suave : when Lope becomes ornate, irony
is not far distant. The nature of the Spanish language
permits rhyme and assonance, without such strain or
cramping as these devices would generate in English.
His effort is to make speeches which can be more easily
pronounced " trippingly on the tongue." Shakespear
also aims at this, but it is a secondary aim, and it is
concealed by his verse structure, although such
words as:

" Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins
remembered,"

have about them something of the Spanish smoothness.
But Lope would have written, I think,

" Nymph,
In thine orisons
Be all our sins
remembered."

Lope is all for speed in dialogue ; his lines are shorter :
thus a translation which has his own blemishes, i.e.
those of carelessness, is a truer representation of him
than one that retards his action by a richer phrasing.
Not that he lacks eloquence or noble diction on
occasion, but his constant aim is swiftness.

This criticism must only be applied to certain plays.

216 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

No formula of criticism even approximately applies to
all of Lope's work. What he does to-day, he does not
to-morrow.

Dante and Shakespear are like giants. Lope is like
ten brilliant minds inhabiting one body. An attempt
to enclose him in any formula is like trying to make
one pair of boots to fit a centipede.

Lope's "Castelvines y Monteses," then, lacks Shake-
spear's richness of diction. He tends towards actual
reproduction of life, while Shakespear tends towards a
powerful symbolic art. In this play each of the masters
has created his own vivid detail. In the Spanish play
there is a delightful and continued "double entente " in
the garden scene, where Julia sits talking to Octavio, in
phrases which convey their real meaning only to Roselo.
Shakespear portrays this maidenly subtlety in Act III.
scene 5, in the dialogue between Juliet and her mother.

Although Lope's play ends in comedy, it has a tragic
emphasis, no lighter than Shakespear's : thus Julia
drinks the sleeping draught, and, as it is beginning to
take effect, doubts whether it be not some fatal poison ;
so all the fear of death is here depicted. Lope is past-
master at creating that sort of •' atmospheric pressure,"
which we are apt to associate only with Ibsen and
Maeterlinck. He envelops his audience with his sense
of " doom impending " and his " approach of terror," or
in any temper of emotion which most fits his words and
makes most sure his illusion.

After Julia has been buried, Roselo comes into the
tomb, and the fear of his crlado (servant), the trusty
Marin, in the place of death brings the comic relief.

(In " Los Bandos de Verona," a later play on this
subject by Rojas, the gracioso is omitted, and the nurse
fills this office in the dramatic machinery, somewhat as
the nurse in Shakespear.)

THE QUALITY OF LOPE DE VEGA 217

Julia awakes ; Marin touches her by accident.

Julia. Man, are you living or dead ?
Marin. " Muerto soy ! "— " Dead am I ! "

The lovers escape to the country, and live disguised
as peasants. Antonio (Julia's father) goes a journey,
discovers Roselo, and is about to have him killed, when
the voice of his supposedly dead daughter arrests him.
The escaped Julia, impersonating her own ghost,
terrifies him into forgiveness, and the play ends in
restoration and gaiety. There is absolutely no necessity
for the general slaughter at the end of Shakespear's
play. If one demand tragedy, Lope creates as intense
an air of tragedy in the poison scene above mentioned.
A decision as to the relative merits of these two plays
is dependent solely on individual taste ; the greatness
of Shakespear is, however, manifest if we shift our
ground of comparison to " Acertar Errando." This
play and u The Tempest " are traceable to a common
source, presumably of rich beauty. When Furness
wrote his introduction to u The Tempest," no source
used by Shakespear in this play had been discovered.
" Acertar Errando " is a far more ordinary affair than
the English play, but then Lope probably wrote his
version in three days or less. In the Spanish play we
find a rightful heiress, Aurora Infanta of Calabria, on
an island, and early in the course of the play this
speech :

Aurora. Fabio, Oton, in the offing there shows a little ship

(barquilla).

Perplexed and buffeted.
Proudly the sea with sledgy blows
Disturbs and drives it on.
They wait your aid.
Thus before mine eyes
Die those that clamour there within,

2i8 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

A prey of the brackish whirl (centro, trough of the sea). . . .

The winds play at pelota (make them their tennis),

Ah, boldness little availing !

Now touch they the stars, and now the sandy floor."

As in the Romeo tale, both authors from their
fecundity supply their own detail, never hitting upon
the same, but often upon equally enchanting methods
of presentation.

Here, I think, we must presuppose much of the
beauty to be that of the common source.

The beneficent Prospero is probably Shakespear's
own creation, although in Lope's play we find mention
of " the power of the stars," and of a " master of the
island." I suspect an Italian, and ultimately Oriental,
source for both the plays, but this is merest conjecture.

Both Ariel and the phantom music of Shakespear's
play were perhaps suggested by Apuleius, but Lope's
prince, in describing the tempest, personifies the winds,
which had confused his mariners : with common names,
to be sure, uEolo" and " Austro," but it is personifica-
tion nevertheless. In Lope's u Tarquin " we find a com-
bination of our old friends Stephano and Trinculo : among
other things, he, at landing, speaks thus familiarly :

" Let me then bless the wine."

Caliban is Shakespear's ; but Lope also mentions an
unprepossessing creature, with one eye larger than the
other.

Lope's further " enredo " or entanglement differs
from that of the English play. He sets fewer char-
acters upon the boards, but there is parallel for
Ferdinand's imprisonment, and for Sebastian's plot
against Alonso (or Caliban's against Prosper — if one
choose to regard it so).

In the end the Prince and Island Princess " ascertain

THE QUALITY OF LOPE DE VEGA 219

by erring," after the rightful manner in such adventure.
A separate volume will be required for an adequate
discussion of this play and the problems it involves.

One might continue giving synopses of Lope's plays
ad infinitum, or almost. No formula of criticism is, as
I have said, of any great use in trying to define him.
He is not a man, he is a literature. A man of normal
energy could spend a fairly active life in becoming
moderately familiar with the 25 per cent, of Lope's
work which has survived him.

His u Adonis y Venus " does not seem particularly
happy ; it is perhaps typical of his dramatic treatment of
classic themes. But if these imitations are without
notable value, how gladly do we turn to those shorter
poems, which are really Spanish. Thus :

" A mis soledades voy
De mis soledades vengo
Porque para andar conmigo
Mi bastan mis pensamientos"

The true poet is most easily distinguished from the
false, when he trusts himself to the simplest expression,
and when he writes without adjectives.

" To my solitudes I go,
From my solitudes return I,
Sith for companions on the journey,
Mine own thoughts (do well) suffice me."

These lines are at the beginning of some careless
redondillons, representing the thoughts he takes with
him journeying ; among which this quatrain :

" Envy they paint with evil chere,
But I confess that I possess it,
For certain men who do not know
The man that lives next door to them."

He is ever at these swift transitions. I think his
thoughts outran even his pen's celerity, so that often

220 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

he writes only their beginnings. It is this that gives
him that matchless buoyancy, that inimitable freshness.
For, notwithstanding the truth of Fitzmaurice Kelly's
statement that in his non-dramatic work " Lope followed
everyone who made a hit," there is about his plays
nothing fin de siecle, but always an atmosphere of
earliest morning. He is like that hour before the
summer dawn, when the bracing cool of the night still
grips the air. There is no kind of excellence (except
that of sustained fineness) of which we dare say, u it was
beyond him," since our refutation may be concealed
anywhere in those surviving plays of his, which no living
man has read.

In one corner of his mind dwelt all the delicacy and wit
of Hood ; in another, the vigour of Marlowe. If haste
or love of words has left some of his nature painting
rhetorical, his

" A penas Leonora
La blanca aurora
Puso su pie de marfil
Sobre las fores de Abril"

(" Scarcely doth the white dawn press

Her ivory foot upon the April flowers "),

is as descriptive of the pale dawn of Spain as is Shake-
spear's " in russet mantle clad," of the more northern
days approaching.

As illustration of his suave, semi-ironical gallantry
I quote this from a passage between " galan" and
" gr arioso"

" Master. Why do they give me this name (i.e. fool) ?
Man. Didn't you come all the way from Milan

Just to look at a woman ?
Master. Isn't a woman more than a city,

Being a world of trouble

And a heaven of pleasure ? "

THE QUALITY OF LOPE DE VEGA 221

" Galan. Porque eso nombre mi dan ?
Gracioso. No vienes desde Milan

Solo a ver un mujer ?

Galan. No es una mujer mas que una ciudad
Siendo un mundo de pesar
Si en do un tie to de plazer ? "

Between his vigour and his suavity, his wit and his
tenderness, the intoxication grows within one. One
may know him rather well and yet come upon him
suddenly in some new phase ; thus, if one knows only
his irony, one comes upon that most exquisite slumber
song in the little book of devotions, uLos Pastores de
Belen " (Bethlehem Shepherds). One stanza is as
follows, the Virgin singing it :

" Cold be the fierce winds
-Treacherous round him ;
Ye see that I have not
Wherewith to guard him.
O Angels, divine ones
That pass us a-flying ;
Sith sleepeth my child here
Still ye the branches."

If we at this late day are bewildered at his versatility,
it is small wonder that the times which saw the man
himself should have gone mad over him.

It is not in the least surprising that in 1647 tnere
should have appeared a creed beginning " I believe in
Lope de Vega the Almighty, the poet of heaven and
earth " ; the marvel is that the Inquisition should have
been able to suppress it.

A Spaniard told me not long since that Lope
prophesied the wireless telegraph. I have forgotten
the exact passage which he used as substantiation, but
I am quite ready to believe it.

At the end of this century Lope's works may be
reasonably accessible. The best English sources of

222 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

information concerning Lope are : H. A. Rennert's
" Life of Lope de Vega " ; Fitzmaurice Kelly's essay
on Lope, in his " Chapters on Spanish Literature " ; and
the pages on Lope in his "History of Spanish Litera-
ture." Synopses of a number of plays are given in
A. F. Von Schack's " Geschichte des dramatischen
Literatur und Kunst in Spanien." There is a Spanish
translation of this work by E. de Mier.

Anyone who can read Spanish would do well to apply
himself to the plays themselves.

No prince of letters ever ruled such subjects as had
Frey Lope Felix de Vega y Carpio.

Either Cervantes or Calderon would have made a
great age of letters. For the wealth that the New
World gave to Spain, Spain paid the Old in song. The
names of Quevedo, Herrera, and a score of other
notable poets are scarcely known outside the Spanish-
speaking countries and the cliques of Spanish scholars.
The histories give us catalogues of their works, but
convey no idea of their flavour. Such collections as are
available are for the most part the choice of eighteenth
century critics, and do not represent the spirit of the
spacious days.

Few of the world's poets have so known the beauti-
ful way of words as did Fernando Herrara, although
my translation of this sonnet to Christobal Mosquera
de Figueira is insufficient proof of it :

" Since my breast burneth up in her sweet fire,
I dare, Mosquera, sing the ill I feel.
For my frail song his haughty air doth steel
From that same sun which is my blindness* sire.

From such as mock Love's pain and his desire
No sheltered speech doth my hot tears conceal,
In humble guise my sad compleynts first kneel
Till hope and boldness from their might respire.

THE QUALITY OF LOPE DE VEGA 223

Absent she is, and lost my light and still
Increaseth with her beauty my grief's madness,
Behold what meed my stubbornness doth gain :
I weep past good and mourn the present ill,
And in the wilderness of this my sadness
Hope faileth me, and daring dies in vain."

Quevedo's fancy could bring forth such conceits as
this, in a speech to his lady looking into a fountain :

" Las aguas que han pasado
Oiras por este prado
Llorar no haberte visto con tristeza"

" You may hear the waters that have passed,
A-weeping through the meadows,
That they have not seen you."

And if one love Wordsworth's " the world is too much
with us," one must care also for Quevedo's ode beginning,

" Alexis, what contrary
Influence of heaven
Persecutes our souls
With the things of the world."

Is there no one who reads the poetry of this period
for love's sake, and not for scholarship, who will make
us an anthology ; no one whose mind is undefiled by
the pseudo-classicism of eighteenth century opinion who
will separate the Spanish poetry of this time from
the Spanish translations and imitations of every foreign
writer from Anacreon to Tasso, and deliver their collec-
tion to those of us who love true poetry, and have not
leisure for the original research?

Perhaps the atmosphere in which this Spanish drama was pre-
sented may be suggested by this quotation from a book of travels,
published thirty years after Lope's death.

The book is, I believe, quite common, but the one copy which I
saw in Madrid had no author's name on the title-page, in conse-
quence of which 1 have not been able to find it in any library.

" Voyage d'Espagne, curieux, historique et politique ; fait en
1'annee 1665. Paris : Chez Charles de Lerey."

224 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

On the 27th of May we were present at "the fiesta" of Corpus,
the most " ostentiosa " and largest of all that we observed in Spain.
It commenced with a procession, preceded by a great number of
musicians and " Vizcainos " with tambourines and castanets. There
accompanied them, moreover, many other persons with garments
more befitting, leaping and dancing as it had been Carnival, in time
to the instruments.

The king went to the church Sa. Maria, nearest the palace, and
after hearing mass, returned with a candle in his hand.

Before was borne the tabernacle, followed by " grandees " of Spain,
and the divers " consejos " (orders) mingled in disorder on this day
to escape disputes of pre-eminence. With the first of the accompany-
ing company were to be observed moreover giant machines, that is,
figures of paste-board, which moved by the efforts of men hidden in
them.

They were of divers forms and some horrible, all representing
women, save the first, which is a monstrous head, painted, and
placed upon the shoulders of a " devoto " of small stature, in such a
manner that the combination resembles a dwarf with the head of a
giant. There are beside other horrors, of like sort, representing two
giants, the one, " moro " (moor, brown), and the other black. The
people call these figures " Los hijos del Vecino."

They told me also of another like figure which passes through
the streets, and is called " La Tarasca." This name, as it is said,
cometh from a bosque that existed of old in " La Provenza," in the
place where lieth Tarascon or Beaucaire, over against Roldano. It
is asserted that in a certain time it was dwelt in by a serpent, as
hostile to the human race as was that one which was the cause of
our first parents being sent from Paradise. Santa Marta at last did
him to death by virtue of her orisons, " orociones " (preaching ?), and
hung him by her girdle.

Be there what may in this tradition, this which is called " La
Tarasca," to which I refer, is a serpent of monstrous magnitude, with
enormous belly, long neck, smallish feet, pigeon-toed, eyes threaten-
ing, and jaws horrible, prominent and thrust forward ; its body
is sewed with scales.

They bear this figure through the streets, and those who are hidden
beneath the cardboard that forms it, direct it to make such move-
ments that they knock off the hats from the heads of the unheeding.

The simple folk hold it in great fear, and when it catches
one, it causes thunderous laughter among the spectators. The most
curious thing of all was the obeisance that these " monigotes " make

THE QUALITY OF LOPE DE VEGA 225

to the Queen, when the procession passes the balcony which she
occupies. Moreover, the King did his obeisance unto the Queen ;
she and the Infanta descend from their seats ; the procession then
took its way to the Plaza (Mayor ?), and returned to Santa Maria by
the Calle Mayor. From this time to the fifth hour of the afternoon
are represented " autos" They are religious dramas, among which
are interspersed burlesque " entremeses " to mitigate and give spice to
the seriousness of the show.

The companies of players, of which there are two in Madrid,
close the theatres at this time for the space of more than a month,
and put only religious pieces on the boards.

They are obliged to play daily before the house of one of the
" presidentes del consejo." The first function is celebrated before the
royal palace, where there is raised for this purpose a booth with a
" ituts" beneath which sit their majesties. The theatre extends to
the foot of the throne. In place of the green-room they have
closets on wheels. In place of scenery they use properties on
wheels, from behind which come forth the actors, and whither they
retire at the end of each scene. Before beginning the " autos" the
dancers of the procession and the " monlgotes " of paste-board referred
to, show their tricks in the presence of the people. That which
disturbed me most, most surprised me in the representation of an
" auto" at which I was present in " El prado Viejo " (old meadow),
was that presenting the play in the middle of the street, and by the
light of day they burned luces, while in other closed theatres they
make use of the natural light, without using the artificial.

CHAPTER IX

CAMOENS

IN 1453 Constantinople was captured by Mohamed II.,
" conqueror of two empires, twelve kingdoms, and three
hundred cities." This event and the invention of print-
ing did not cause the Renaissance, but precipitated it.
During the dark ages there had been a series of attempts;
of abortive Renaissances ; Charlemagne, Alfred, Alcuin,
Rosclin, Abelard, the so-called awakening in the tenth
century and in the twelfth, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, all
precede that period which is termed the Renaissance.
But without the printing press, or without such trained
slaves to multiply manuscripts, as there had been for the
publishers of Imperial Rome, there could be no victory
over the general ignorance ; no propagandist movement
could be more than local or temporary.

The fall of the city of Constantine scattered classical
scholars and manuscripts over Europe ; and coupled with
other Moslem conquests, closed the old caravan routes,
making it necessary, if trade with the East one must,
to trade by some other way ; whence the doubling of
the Cape of Good Hope, and the discovery of America ;
whence the sense of expansion which is mirrored in
literature, usually in a style showing to greater or less
degree the influence of the Greek or Roman classics.
Thought was supposedly set free, but style was taken
captive, for an age at least.

Shakespear is the consummation : in most of his
work all traces of the means have disappeared. Lope
is, in part, of the Middle Ages ; in part, of the mid-
stream of the Renaissance ; and, in part, a result of it.

226

CAMOENS 227

Both Lope and Shakespear add their incalculable
selves to any expression of the Time Spirit ; they owe
much to it, but are not wholly dependent thereupon.
Till now we have treated only of the generative
forces in literature: Camoens is not a force, but a
symptom. His work is utterly dependent upon the
events and temper of his time ; and in it, therefore,
we may study that temper to maximum advantage.
A corresponding study in architecture were a study
of "barocco."

uOs Lusiadas" is, according to Hallam, "the first
successful attempt in modern Europe to construct an
epic poem on the ancient model." The subject fits the
time; it is the voyage of Vasco de Gama, with the
history of Portugal interpolated. This voyage was
made 1497-1499^.0. Camoens was born in 1524, and
uThe Portuguese" (Os Lusiadas) published in Lisbon
in 1572.

We are summoned to attend this song in a style
grandiloquent, flowing, " Hum estylo grandiloquo e
corriente," because it tells of real men, whose deeds
surpass all the fictitious deeds of fabled heroes.

The quality of Camoens' mind is rhetorical, but his
diction and his technique are admirable. The beauty
of Camoens will never be represented in English until
his translators learn to resist translating every Portu-
guese word by an English word derivative from the
same Latin root. The translation of Camoens into
words of Saxon origin would demand a care of diction
equal to that of the author, and would retain the vigour
of the original. A translation filled with Latinisms looks
like a cheap imitation of Milton ; and if one wants a
Miltonic version of the grand style of Portugal, one
had much better go to Milton himself, to passages like
the following :

228 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

" As when to them who sail
Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past
Mozambic, off at sea north-east windes blow
Sabean odours from the spicie shore
Of Arabic the blest, with such delay
Well pleased they slack their course, and many a league
Cheared with the grateful smell, old ocean smiles."

Camoens writes resplendent bombast, and at times it
is poetry. The unmusical speech of Portugal is sub-
jugated, its many discords beaten into harmony. As
florid rhetoric, the Lusiads are, I suppose, hardly to be
surpassed. The charm is due to the vigour of their
author, his unanimity, his firm belief in the glory of
externals ; and there is also a certain pleasure in coming
into contact with Camoens' type of mind, the mind of
a man who has enthusiasm enough to write an epic
in ten books without once pausing for any sort of
philosophical reflection. He is the Rubens of verse.

An epic cannot be written against the grain of its
time: the prophet or the satirist may hold himself
aloof from his time, or run counter to it, but the writer
of epos must voice the general heart. Although
Camoens is indubitably a poet, one reads him to-day
with a prose interest. u Os Lusiadas " is better than
an historical novel ; it gives us the tone of the time's
thought. Thus far it is epic. By its very seeming
faults it shows us what things interested the people of
that time.

Geography, as fresh then as is aviation to-day, could
be dwelt upon at length ; the costumes of people in
strange places were worthy description.

This much is real; the furniture of deities is a
nuisance, but the real weakness of the Lusiads is that
it is the epic of a cross section, and voices a phase, a
fashion of a people, and not their humanity.

CAMOENS 229

Apart from the prose interest, our interest is in his
use of language. What Camoens wanted is very clearly
stated in Book I. stanza 5 :

" Give me a madness great and sounding,
Not of the country pipe or shepherd's reed."

" Mas de tuba canora e bellicosa"

" But of a trumpet resonant and warlike."

The muses answered his prayers with precision. He
got his trumpet, and his wind was excellent. As his
beauty depends solely on his diction and sound, great
care must be taken in translation, or nothing remains
but rhetoric. His technique may be proven by a few
illustrations, and the dangers of careless translation
likewise. Thus,* of committing the ships to the sea
(i. 27) :

"commetando
O duvidoso mar n' hum lenho leve"

" Unto the doubtful sea their wood unweighty."

Half the charm of the line is in the assonance.

His simplicity and directness are greater than anyone
would suppose from any translation that I have seen.
Aubertin, attempting to retain the original rhyme
scheme, renders i. 58, 1-2:

" Now did the moon in purest lustre rise
On Neptune's silvery waves her beams to pour."

" Da lua os claros ram rutilavam
Pelas argenteas ondas neptuninas"

Literally,

" The clear rays of the moon glitter
Through the argent waves of the sea."

(We have no English adjective u neptunian.")

230 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

The lines following are as free from ornateness :

" The stars accompany the heavens
As a field reclothed with daisies,
The furious winds rest in the dark, strange caves.

(perigrinas : i.e. caves where even they come as strangers.)
But the folk of the fleet keep vigil,
As for long time had been their wont."

In i. 59 we find the words "aurora marchetada."
The dictionaries give "marchetar," to inlay, enamel,
adorn ; but " marcheta " is a mantle, or that part of a
mantle, or mantilla, where the ribbons are fastened.
Thus it is obvious, both for sense and for beautiful
association, that we must not translate aurora mar-
chetada as enamelled, or even adorned Aurora, but :

" The mantled (or even beribboned) dawn
Spreads out her glorious hair
Upon the sky serene, opening the ruddy door
To clear Hyperion, awakened.
All the fleet began to " embanner " itself,
And to adorn itself, with joyful awnings,
To receive with festivities and joy
The ruler of the isles who was departing."

Modern interest in the poem centres in those stanzas
of the third canto which treat of Ignez da Castro.
The tale of Ignez da Castro will perhaps never be
written greatly, for art becomes necessary only when
life is inarticulate ; and when art is not an expression,
but a mirroring, of life, it is necessary only when life is
apparently without design ; that is, when the conclusion
or results of given causes are so far removed or so hidden,
that art alone can make their relation manifest. Art
that mirrors art is unsatisfactory, and, the great poem,
" Ignez da Castro," was written in deeds by King Pedro.
No poem can have such force as has the simplest narra-
tion of the events themselves.

CAMOENS 231

In brief: Constai^a, wife of Pedro, heir to the throne
of Portugal, died in 1345. He then married in secret
one of her maids of honour, Ignez da Castro, a Castilian
of the highest rank. Her position was the cause of
jealousy, and of conspiracy; she was stabbed in the
act of begging clemency from the then reigning
Alfonso IV. When Pedro succeeded to the throne,
he had her body exhumed, and the Court did homage,
the grandees of Portugal passing before the double
throne of the dead queen and her lord, and kissing that
hand which had been hers. A picture of the scene
hangs in the new gallery at Madrid, with that great
series of canvasses which commemorate the splendid
horrors of the Spanish past.

Camoens, for once unadorned, begins his allusion
with four immortal lines :

" O caso triste, e digno de memorla
Que do sepmchro os homes desenterra
Aconteceo da miseria, e mesqmnha
Que, despots de ser morta pol Rainha"

* " A sad event and worthy of Memory,

Who draws forth men from their (closed) sepulchres,

Befell that piteous maid, and pitiful

Who, after she was dead was (crowned) queen."

I have had to add the bracketed words to keep the
metre. The powerful antithetic suggestion of the
second line can escape no one.

The further narrative, with the comparison to the
wilted daisy, is beautiful and full of music ; but it is the
beauty of words and cadences, and of expression, not
the beauty of that subtler understanding which is
genius, and the dayspring of the arts. How wise is
De Quincey, when he speaks of the " miracle which
can be wrought simply by one man's feeling a thing
more keenly, understanding it more deeply, than it has

232 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

ever been felt before." In this pass fails Camoens, for
all his splendour, and with him fail the authors of the
Renaissance. It is true that he felt the glory of
Portugal as no other poet has felt it. But this glory
was short-lived.

Every age, every lustrum, yields its crop of pleasant
singers, who know the rules, and who write beautiful
language and regular rhythms ; poetry completely free
from the cruder faults : bttt the art of writing poetry
which is vitally interesting, this is a matter for masters.
The above has for so long been platitude that no one
recognizes more than the surface of it.

Those who enjoy the submarine parts of Keats'
"Endymion " will probably enjoy, for contrast and com-
parison, that part of the sixth canto of " Os Lusiadas "
which treats of Bacchus' visit to Neptune.

" No mas Interno fundo das profundos

Cavernas alias, onde o mar se esconde
La donde as ondas sahem furlbundas

Quando as iras do vento o mar responded

There is a fine thunderous resonance about it.

" In th' inmost deep of the profound
High caverns, where the sea doth hide him,
There, whence the waves come forth in madness,
When to the wraths of wind the sea respondeth."

Here dwells the lord of the trident ; behind golden
gates inlaid with seed pearl ; and here is the gentle reader
introduced to all the deities, and demi-deities, whose
acquaintance he has not already made in the lofty courts
of Jove.

Nowhere, I think, does Camoens reach the Miltonic
maximum of twenty-four allusions to the classics and
Hebrew Scriptures, in a passage of twenty lines.

In brief, then, " The Lusiads " is remarkable as the
sustained retention of an assumed grand manner.

CAMOENS 233

Camoens was a master of sound and language, a man
of vigour and a splendid rhetorician ; that part of the
art of poetry which can be taught, he learned. Long-
fellow had the same type of mind. Marooned on a
stern and rock -bound coast, planted in an uninteresting
milieu, and in a dreary age, Camoens would have shown a
corresponding mediocrity. If in the future anyone should
ever become interested in the mid-eighteenth century
atmosphere of Massachusetts, he would find the works
of Longfellow most valuable as archaeological documents.
Thus, to the student of the Renaissance, Camoens.

Robert Garnett's translation of some of his sonnets
is a labour of love, and may convey a more favourable
impression.

If one were seeking to prove that all that part of
art which is nor the inevitable expression of genius
is a by-product of trade or a secretion of commercial
prosperity, the following facts would seem significant.
Shortly before the decline of Portuguese prestige,
Houtman, lying in jail for debt at Lisbon, planned
the Dutch East India Company. When Portugal
fell, Holland seized the Oriental trade, and soon after
Roemer Visscher was holding a salon, wherewith the
following names are connected : — Rembrandt, Grotius,
Spinoza, Vondel (born 1587) "the one articulate
voice of Holland," Coornhert, Spieghel, Coster, Hooft,
Raeel, Vossius, Erasmus, and Thomas-a-Kempis.

Our interest centres in the work of Vondel, whose
plays and whose non-dramatic work reflect not only
these forces of the Renaissance which we have already
noted, but also the forces of the religious struggle then
in progress. The one play which I know to be available
for those who do not read Dutch is the u Lucifer,"
translated by Leonard van Noffen. Van NofTen's intro-
ductory essay on " Vondel's Life and Times " repays

234 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

the reading. I can illustrate what I find lacking in
Camoens — which is, I suppose, nothing more or less
than the magical quality of poetry — by one line from a
poem of Lope's, a poem written, presumably in emula-
tion of Camoens' " hit," " The Lusiads." I mean " La
Circe," where Lope speaks of

" The white forest of the Grecian ships."
" De Griegas naves una bianco, selva"

I am not sure but Camoens may be tried in an easier
fire and found wanting. Let us test him with two lines
of that modern Italian1 whose beautiful cold intellect
we, outside of Italy, are so slow in praising.

" Come in chiare acque albor Ionian di Stella
Rldea talma ne gll occhl e trasparia"

"Juvenalia," i. xi.

" Her soul smiles in her eyes and showeth through them
As in clear waters the far whiteness of a star."

xThe practical failure of Carducci to get a hearing
outside the most cultured and fastidious circles of Italy
is the most striking proof, that I know, of the truth
that poetry is something more than exquisite thought.

If poetry be a part of literature — which I am some-
times inclined to doubt, for true poetry is in much
closer relation to the best of music, of painting, and of
sculpture, than to any part of literature which is not
true poetry ; if, however, Arnold considered poetry as
a part of literature, then his definition of literature as
" criticism of life " is the one notable blasphemy that
was born of his mind's frigidity.

The spirit of the arts is dynamic. The arts are not
passive, nor static, nor, in a sense, are they reflective,
though reflection may assist at their birth.

Poetry is about as much a " criticism of life " as red-
hot iron is a criticism of fire.

CHAPTER X

POETI LATINI

THE cult of Provence was, as we have said, a cult of
the emotions ; that of Tuscany a cult of the harmonies
of the mind. The cult of the Renaissance was a cult
of culture.

It is probably true that the Renaissance brought in
rhetoric, and all the attendant horrors. Between the
age of Dante and the age of Shakespear none sang as
sang the contemporaries of these men. The difference
between the songs of their periods is due to the fact
that there had been a Renaissance. The " expansion "
strikes the spirit of song primarily : the influence of the
classics bears primarily upon the style. If we are to
learn the exact nature of this influence, we must examine
those works where it appears least affected by other
influences — that is, the works of the men who were
the most persistent in their effort to bring the dead to
life, and who most conscientiously studied and followed
their models. Those men who wrote in the mother-
Latin have the best of it, since in them alone does the
inner spirit conform to the outward manner. They
alone do no violence to their medium; their diction is
not against the grain of the language which they use.
In these men dwelt the enthusiasm which set the
fashion ; their myths and allusions are not a furniture
or a conventional decoration, but an interpretation of
nature. The classical revival was beneficent in this :
it broke down the restricting formulas of medieval art,
and brought back to poetry a certain kind of nature-
feeling which had been long absent.

235

236 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

The best Latin was written in Italy, and if the men
who wrote it were not immortals, they were at least
sincere, and they sang of the things they cared about.

I can place over the collections of Toscanus and
Gherus, and over the period of Latin singing represented
therein, no more fitting inscription than Andrea Navgeri's
rune for a fountain :

" Inscnptio Fontis
" Lo ! the fountain is cool and

none more hale of waters.
Green is the land about it,

soft with the grasses.
And twigged boughs of elm

stave off (arced) the sun.

There is no place more charmed

with light-blown airs,
Though Titan in utmost flame

doth hold the middle sky,
And the parched fields burn with

the oppressing star.

Stay here thy way, O voyager,

for terrible is now the heat ;

Thy tired feet can go no further now.

Balm here for weariness is
sweet reclining,

Balm 'gainst the heat, the winds,
and greeny shade !

And for thy thirst the lucid fount's assuaging."

Ercole Cuccoli, in his "Studio," on Mark Anthony
Flaminius (Bologna, 1897), quotes Carducci to the
effect that, "a denial of the aesthetic fineness of a no
small part of the poetry, Italian and Latin, of the
Cinquecento cannot be made except with great injustice,
or by one who has an inadequate knowledge of art."

Cuccoli follows this by saying, " everyone recognizes
the period, but what is lacking is a careful study of the
works themselves"

POETI LATINI 237

Presuming on the part of the reader a certain famili-
arity with the times of Raphael and Buonarroti, I pro-
ceed with notice of the man whose words I have above
translated, Andrea Navageri : " from Sabellico in the
Venitian province, a man profiting by Latin letters
and by Greek, a pupil of Marcus Musorus, in Latin
diction and in observation surpassing his preceptor."

"To the Winds" he makes this "Prayer for Idmon'1:

" Ye winds that cross the air

on light-plumed wing
And murmur gentle-voiced

through deep groves ;
Lo ! these garlands doth

one give to you,
Idmon, the rustic, scattereth

to you
This basket rilled with

fragrant crocuses,
Make temperate the summer's heat,

bear off the useless chaff,
While 'neath the mid-day

he doth fan the grain."

One is, of course, reminded of Joachim du Bellay's song
of the "Winnowers of Wheat to the Winds," and, in-
deed, the work of these Italians writing in Latin is not
unlike that of the French Pleiade. Navgeri, again, voices
the feeling of the risorgimento in the inscription for

" The Image of Pythagoras

" He who, Fame saith, hath lived so oft a soul re-born,
Into a changed body oft returning.
Behold ! once more from heaven
He comes and through Asyla's skill hath life,
And serves the ancient beauty with his lineament.
Some worthy thing he broodeth certainly,
So stern of brow, so mightily withdrawn within himself,
He could the high perceptions of the soul show forth, were't not
That held from the older cult, he doth not speak."
" Sed veteri obstrlctus religione, si/et"

238 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

In the last line, silet suggests the silentes anni of the
Pythagorean disciples.

The lament of Baldassare Castiglione (that "courteous
prince of Mantua, civitium ocelle, known to all as the
author of "II Cortegiano") for the painter whom he
loved, re-echoes the spirit of the times' desire.

" De Morte Raphaelis Pictoris
(transcription of part of the poem)

" Unto our city Rome, sore wounded
By the sword and flame and flow of years,
Thou did'st bring back that rare, lost beauty
That was hers of old. Thou did'st scorn
The laws that bind us lesser mortals
And dared'st lead back a soul unto its earthly dwelling,
And the spirit unto this our poor dead city ;
Wherefore were the very high gods angry
With thee, O Raphael, and took thee from us
While thy years were yet as flowers."

The reference to restoring Rome's lost beauty does
not, in all probability, refer to Raphael's painting, but
to a certain matter of which he had written to the
Count Baldassare in these words :

" His Holiness, in doing me honour, has laid a heavy
burden upon my shoulders, which is the care and charge
of building St Peter's . . . the model I have made
pleases his Holiness." "I would fain find out the
fine forms of the antique buildings." ..." I do not
know whether I am attempting to fly like Icarus."
" Vitruvius gives me great light but not sufficient."

Of the men whose fame rests, or might rest chiefly
on their Latin poems, the best known is Marcus
Antonius Flaminius, born 1498 in Serravalle. Until
the age of fourteen he studied with his father, John
Flaminius, superintendent of schools in Serravalle; "a
man of Spartan simplicity," author of "The Lives of

POETI LATINI 239

the Roman Emperors," and " Lives of the Dominican
Saints " ; one u shunning the glamour of the papal
court," to which, however, he sends young Mark at
the tender age of sixteen, armed with the family's
poetical works, and an introduction to Leo X. Authors,
especially Latin poets, seem, in the Cinquecento, to have
been born — or made — collectively; thus we have five
Capilupi, three Amalthei, Castiglione and his wife, and
other combinations.

At the papal court young Mark was favourably
received by the Pope and his cardinals. One says that
he was "learned and awkward," another that he was
" amiable and bashful," while the Cardinal of Aragon,
" charmed with his manners and talent," says that Mark
fearlessly disputed with the Pontiff himself.

In the poems^ of Mark Antony Flaminius we find
signs of the scholar's sensitiveness to nature, both to
the natural things themselves and to those spiritual pre-
sences therein, which age after age finds it most fitting
to write of in the symbolism of the old Greek myth-
ology. Gently and sincerely religious, we find Flaminius
the friend of most of the brilliant men in Italy,; among
these were Valdez, the Spanish reformer, and Cardinal
Pole. His religious quality, or the quality of his
religion, can be seen in his Hymnus III. :

" Utjlos tenellos, in sinu
Telluris almae, lucldam
Formosus expllcat comam
Si ros et imber educat
Ilium : tenella mens mea
Sicjloret, almi spiritus
Dum rore dulci pascitur
Hoc ilia si caret, statim
Languescit ut flos arida
Tellure natus, eum nisi
Et ros et imber educat"

240 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

HYMN III

" As a fragile and lovely flower unfolds its gleaming
foliage on the breast-fold of the fostering earth, if the
dew and rain draw it forth ; thus doth my tender mind
flourish if it be fed with the sweet dew of the Fostering
Spirit.

u Lacking this, it straightway beginneth to languish
even as a flower born upon dry earth, if the dew and
the rain tend it not."

This prose translation is modelled upon that in the
"Scholar's Vade Mecum," by John Norton, an odd,
egotistical little book printed in 1674.

A certain E. W. Bernard translated fifty of Flaminius'
poems during the first quarter of the last century, but
there is as yet no representative English version of
them.

For the pagan side of Flaminius' poetry, I give you
one simile from the " Hercules and Hylas," where
Hylas, "being a-wandered in the silent hills," comes
to the " fountain filled with little gleamings." The
nymphs seize him and bear him quickly away beneath
the waters.

" As once in the splendour of the spring-time
A flying star drooped through the gloom of the night
Shone forth, then sank in the sea-deep."

The nature-worship and the abandonment of the
chivaleric love mode, which mark the definite break
with mediaeval tradition, are easily perceptible in the
following fragments of Flaminius : —

" To the Dawn

" Behold from the Earth's rim cometh Eoe !
Aurora resplendent draweth the rose of her chariot,
In her flushed bosom she beareth the far-gleaming light.

POETI LATINI 241

Be gone ye wan shades unto Orcus !

Be gone ye dread faces of the manes

Who all night long bring to me dreams and foreboding.

Now bring the bard his lyre, O Slave,

And scatter flowers while I sing :

' Satve, Bona Diva, thou that makest luminous

Dark lands with the might of thy splendour.

Thine are the fragile violets and crocuses !

Thine are the wicker baskets of fragrant Amomon !

The wind ariseth and beareth to thee our sweet perfumes

Goddess fairer than all other goddessess,

Rose-cheeked, when thou dost spread forth

Thy golden hair along the sky

Then flee the tawny stars

And the moon's pale beauty waneth.

Lacking thee were all things lacking colour,

And mortals were buried in gloom,

Nor would our life bear flower in the skilful arts.

Thou drivest sleep from our sluggard eyes,

Sleep that is image of Lethe."

In another poem of the night is the following : —

"It thunders, the grove groaneth for the greatness
of the wind, the multitude of the rains pour down.
Night with her sleep-bearing winds is round about us,
and is blind. The cloak of strange cloud forms maketh
dark the earth."

Flaminius loves the feel of the elements ; he knows
also that the land he dwells in is haunted by the shades
of those Roman singers from whom he has learned his
ways of song ; whence this to the haunts of Catullus :

" O pleasing shore of Sirmio,
White-shining hill of Catullus !
O Muse, teach me to sing the praise
Of the blest sylvan ways
Citrus laden, and of Lesbia the fair.

242 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

Lo ! in the flower-filled vale of Taburnus

Stands an altar to thee,

Green and cut from the turf.

Thrice from the foam-filled bowl we pour

Thee milk, and thrice of the honey's store.

Suppliant do our voices call thee,

Goddess, to an unskilled sacrifice,

That thy reed pipe sweetly tuned may

Sing for her, the fairest maid of all the meadland,

Our Hyellas."

The complete difference between the love modes of
Tuscany and Provence and those of the classic revival
can be seen in the following genre.

" May the mother of love be tender, granting thee youth forever,
With thy cheek's bloom unfurrowed.

When after the day's last meal with thy mother and sweet Lycinna,
Mayst thou visit my mother, Pholoe beloved,
And together we will watch by the great fire,
And that night shall be fairer than the day's fairness.
While the old wives tell their tales over,
While little Lycinna roasts her chestnuts,
We will sing gay songs together."

The nature feeling is present in Camillus Capilupus'
song to the night :

" Ad Noctem

•" Night, that queenest it o'er the ether-born stars,
Now ruling in the mid-space of heaven,
Grant pardon if I break thy magical silence with my song !

Sweet love of thee hath drawn me through the shades.
Who can withhold his song from praising thee ?
Who hath not his being burnt clear of earth,
To fuse with thee, made utterly thine ?

Hesper, loved of maidens, gleameth in thy hair,
As a red rose, he gleameth on thy brow.
One is it, if thou makest way to Phoebus' coming,
One if thou sweepest thy hasty garment o'er the sea.

POETI LATINI 243

With the same dew dost thou scatter

The honey-sweetness upon the violets and growing corn,

And with it thou dost feed

The stars that sanctify thee with their gold-gleaming fires.

In thy hours come forth the nymphs

Who bathe in the cool waters of the ford,

And join in the light dancing line

With their hill-kin Oreiades.

Dryads of wood and daughters of the fountains

Sing o'er their chants in mazy circles moving.

Witness thou art of man's love-sorrow,

Cherishing him in the lure of thy shadowy deeps.

Thou dost restore his courage when before thy healing doors

Ill-starred he feareth a strange thing and unknown."

Shaggy as is the translation, its substance should prove
that the myths and personifications have for these men
a vital significance.

It is not, however, to Capilupus, but to John Baptist
Amalthei, that we must turn for our finest singing ; his
" Corydon " is typical of the time's taste, both in form
and manner.

" Corydon

" Lo ! do the fields me call again, and sweet recesses.
The oat-pipe witcheth for a field-grown song's composing,
Close to the water-ways where light wind murmureth
Beneath the willow shade, where waters of Athesis
Flow surrounding.
And even thou, O tribe of heroes, when great Caesar brought thee

peace,

Thou progeny that vied with very gods,
Wast wont to make familiar shepherd's haunts
And shadowy hospitalities beneath their trees.
And where the banks are soft the farmers lay
Their altar gifts and set full tables for the banqueting,
Poured out new milk and brought thee fatted lambs ;
Kept up the solemn feasts, lest starry gods grow envious,
For then man's prayers brought favour unto man.

244 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

Wherefore draw nigh, nor hold in scorn

The gentler sports of the Muses,

For where Neptune's trident draweth back his towered might,

Doth Corydon the leisured ears incite :

Ye happy winds that o'er the dewy sown,

Girdled with Zephyrs' gentleness, where spring perennial

Fosters th' eternal flowers and the charmed green,

Yours the Idalian myrtle. Lo ! and the grove stands here

Crowned with the Muses' frondage, and Corydon

Sets seven altars here, with green-tipped boughs

Near to the waters of this moss-green fountain.

0 make ye soft the heat, and with whispers alluring
Temper the down-rayed light of th' ardent sun,
Thus : ne'er may cloudy skies make dark your courses
And may the earth and sea both wear for you their smiles.

For now doth Nisa tend my grove and the wood doth hear
Her approaching quiver-girded, and the fallow deer swift-flying.
Nor dread'th she the driving of the great stags clamorous.

1 envy you, O ye out-breathing winds upon the march.
She seeketh the hills, and the inhospitable forests traverseth,
The huntress renowned for her bow and the light-flying arrows.
And on the harsh flanks of wind-worn cliffs, and though vast

passes

Of the wood do gird her round,
Are ye, O winds, her most steadfast companions,
Her fellows in labour.

O'er bold she is, alas !

To scour the lonely fields, and she surmounteth
Th' highest peaks of th' unshorn mounts most perilous,
There where the grim boar stands him to his arms
And wrath and dire lust do drive him monstrous on.

So many a snare is here. Nay ! that goddess lacked not in
cunning

That erst 'neath Aetna Sicilian gathered her wreaths of new
violets,

And was torn unhappy unto that drear realm, the shadow-
shrouded,

And there, ill-starred, knew fear of ghosts in Dis the sorrowful,

And hapless drank in terror from the flaming streams.

POETI LATINI 245

And thou too, O reckless Aquillo, vagrant in wayless lands,
Snatched'st Orithyia in thy keen embracing.

0 bold Aquillo ! turn this wile aside, and O ! here stay thy blast !
But ye, O gentle spirits, dewy-winged,

That rule in heaven, bear off the unjust heat.

1 envy you, O winds, whom Nisa doth detain with subtile song,
To whom her rosy breasts she layeth free,

Or in the bosom of the pasture lands, or further hidden

Within some empty cave, where she doth dream alone upon our

loves,

Where forests tower up, and there stand silent-throated about her
All the attentive birds, and the rivers hush their courses
And she sings, — and heaven laughs all its light.

Now doth she broider the whortle on woven acanthus

And joyeth to vary the pattern with snowy lingustris,

Or layeth she bare to its calyx the slender hibiscus.

But if her wearying eyes droop down in sleep,

May ye, O winds, 'gainst heat and weariness,

Refresh her speedily, and gentle-moving,

Breathe down your shadowy perfumes round about her.

I envy you, O winds, O ye that wander

Through the hospitable glamour of forests and th' unguarded

recesses,
And know what hill or vale is Nisa's dwelling.

She doth for rigorous hunts prepare her

When Lucifer drencheth the grass in morning dew

And all the fields resound a bird-throat chorus.

Yet ere she treads the grove with bow unbended,

Her ram, his horns bound round with woody garlands and

arbutus,
She calls to the 'customed feasts of the flowered cythisos.

O Ram, so fortunate that none is more so —

Not even he who through the welling seas

Bore Phryxus on his golden back, and now doth gleam

Among the fair formed stars —

Adorned art thou with ivy green and amaracus,

And nibbling careless clip'st the meadow-land

Of thine accustomed fields.

And 'gainst the whistling winds warm-guarded,

Dost marvel at the beaten forest's murmuring.

246 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

O would that I might slip beneath the wool of thy white back,

Stretch forth the curling horns from thy wide forehead

When night brings Nisa home weighed down with sanguine

trophies,

And leads thee back to thine accustomed fold !
Then might she spread for me red-rusted hyacinths and crocuses
Fair-blown, while I pressed stealthy kisses on her maiden hands,
Or butting gleefully might drive her hastening home.

But you, O children of the highest Jove,

You oft with many a prayer do I beseech,

And do ye reverence with the varied gifts of flowers.

Ye happy winds that round the dewy sown

Are girt about with gentle zephyrs, and with Spring

Perennial do feed th' eternal flowers and tend the charmed sward ! "

Amalthei has left us a series of such poems, among
them a " Lycidas," but the most sincere and passionate
elegy which I have found is Castiglione's "Alcon."
The author of "II Cortegiano " has left very few Latin
poems, but they are nearly all of interest. Thus
these fragments from the

Alcon

" Ta'en of the fates in the flower of thy years,
Alcon, the grove's glory and the lover's solace,
Whom oft, so oft the fauns and dryads heard a-singing,
Whom oft, so oft the Sun and Pan have looked upon
Admiring ! Weep all the shepherds now,
And more than all, lolas, lolas whom thou lovedst
Doth bear his face most sad with rained tears,
Cries down the gods for cruel and the stars for foes.

As 'mid the encircling dark the nightingale

Mourns for her stricken young, and as the widower dove

Mourns for his mate (so I mourn for one)

Whom late the oak looked down upon

And found him glad and careless of the morrow.

Him doth that cruel shepherd death with his shrill reed pipe

down.

He knows no more the twigs a-green and grass rejoicing ;
He drinks no more of the clear stream's sweet current ;

POETI LATINI 247

His grove bears witness to the loss of him ;

All withered, its deep recesses are filled with lamenting.

• ••••••

Alcon, the muse's joy and Apollo's.
Alcon, our soul's part and our heart's.
Alcon, most greatly ours as grief is now,
Grief that o'erflows our eyes with lasting tears,
What god or what fell doom hath torn thee from us ?

Because ? Because doom's cruelty doth snatch the best alway.
The reaper doth not reap the unripe grain,
The yokel doth not pluck the unmellowed fruit,
But wild brute Death doth pluck before the day.

The fields' joy, love, the charities, yea, all our light is gone !
The trees put off their pageantries, of honours dishonoured.

With withered grasses the dry fields lay down their glory."

And so it continues, " we that have borne the cold
together, we, friends since boyhood, shall no more lie
beneath the oak's shade in summer."

" If I flee from the long suns of the summer,
Thy pipe shall not fill the surrounding hills with enchantment."

The Poems of Flaminius and the Idyls of J. B.
Amalthei are perhaps the most notable work of this
group of writers.

It is needless to say that the average work of a
pedantic movement is uninteresting. One must search
long for the beautiful poems which are embedded in
a mass of epistolary poetry and imitations of the classics
which are not only slavish but impotent. The writing
of epigrams was popular. The results are sometimes
graceful, but ninety-nine per cent, at least are unim-
portant. The following of Hieronimus Angeriani may
serve as an illustration :

248 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

" AD ROSAM
(From the Erotop&gnion)
'Rose of fair form, God grant thee grace !
Thou dost endure but little space ;
Sith old age thou mayst not wear,
Thy time be, as thy face is, fair."

A number of long poems were attempted ; among
them one by Marcus Hieronymus Vida, u On the Play
of Chess," beginning :

" Let us make game in effigy of war,
Feigning of truth in strife.
Sham battle lines of wood . . .
Let us between two kings, the black and white,
For praise and prizes opposite strive with twi-coloured arms."

Aonius Palearius attempted u The Immortality of the
Soul " in three books, whereof the first opens :

" Ye happy souls and fosterlings of heaven omnipotent,
Ye glory of the stars, who on varicoloured wings
Swim through the liquid aether and who past the stars
And through the major orbs huge courses turn ;
Since every race of men and beastly species
Sends up its prayers through you, and since through you
Unto the luminous coasts the path doth lie ;
Ye who do bear all things unto the face

Of the great King, ye who are that same King's chiefest care ;
To you the wind-spread sea and castled earth
(Turrita tellus. Towered earth)
Give praise ; yea, the open fields resound you
And all th' inaccessible forests ring with your voices,
Where there be thickets of brushwood near to the deep-
sounding rivers.

The flying ones sweet sing to you through vasty void
(magnum inane).
Ye first showed mortals the passage to the stars.

'Tis by your aid I do loose rein
For places never trod."

POETI LATINI 249

Life is perhaps too short to read either poem in its
entirety. The last lines quoted imply a naive ignorance
of Dante's work, \vhich the good Palearius would have
probably considered hopelessly Gothic. The pedantry
of the Renaissance must have been insufferable.

Set apart from all the other poetry of the time are
those sonnets which Michael Agnolo seems to have
beaten together with a sculptor's mallet to the glory of
Vittoria Colonna, who, as he says, " Hewed his soul
from the rock and freed it as the sculptor the figure
from its shrouding."

Buonarroti's poetry is not indicative of any tendency
of the time, except that toward writing poems to
Vittoria. None of the Latinists did it so well as he. To
witness, this translation by J. A. Symonds :

* A man within a woman, nay a God
Speaks through her spoken word ;
I therefore who have heard
Must suffer change, and shall be mine no more.
She lured me from the paths I whilhom trod,
Borne from my former state by her away,
I stand aloof, and mine own self deplore.
Above all vain desire
The beauty of her face doth lift my clay,
All lesser loveliness seems charnal mire.
O Lady, who through fire
And water leadest souls to joy serene,
Let me no more unto myself return."

But Michael Agnolo is against the spirit of the time.
He preferred Dante to Bembo. In him survive the
Middle Ages ; in a totally different way we find a
mediaeval quality in the Franciscan temper of Flaminius.

How paganism took possession of art, and how,
further, the fashions of praising the gods are adapted
to the praising of saints, may be seen from this little
prayer of John Carga's :

250 THE SPIRIT OF ROMANCE

" To the Virgin Mother, whose shrine is at Lauretus

" O goddess of the great sea, whose star
Doth rule the winds twixt both the shores of ocean,
And doth for sailors shine, whene'er
Their prayers stretch sail,

Calm thou these watery floods of the Adrian
From thy fostering house at Lauretus, and by thy breath
Make safe the ships' course, let not Auster
O'erwhelm us with tempest.

For returned unto the ports of our fatherland
By gifts will we fullfill all vows to thee
And every shrine along the shore shall flow
With frankincense and song."

The Cinquecento was a luxurious period, it wrote
copiously. I believe its real gifts to the art of poetry
are the two mentioned, the nature feeling and the
widening of the scope of the subject matter ; these are,
of course, resurrections, not initial contributions. As
for the rest, if any modern really enjoys reading, Bembo,
Poliziano, Sanazzaro, Ariosto, or even Tasso, let him
stand forth and praise them.

One name I have neglected and which is possibly
worth mention is that of Aurelius Augurellus. He
wrote among other things, " De Poeti," a short poem,
the title of which we may render freely as " Concern-
ing the Artistic Temperament " ; it contains some Ovid,
and a certain amount of unintentional humour. He is
to be thanked for a fine opening :

" Caelestis intus exdtat vates vigor
Ultroque semper promonet. ..."

u An inward celestial power arouseth the bard and
ever moveth him toward the 'beyond.' '

And his " aegrum vu/gus^ a diseased rabble," is one

POETI LATINI 251

degree more contemptuous than the "profanum vu/gus"
of Horace.

Another series of men who are usually neglected in
studies of the Renaissance are those whom we might
call uThe Conservitors," they who fought the long fight
in the dark : Cassiodorus, Benedict, St Columba, Alcuin.
Both these and early printers, Aldus, Estienne Froben
of Basel, Plantin, Elzevir of Leyden, The Kobergers,
Caxton, who is more familiar, find fitting memorial in
Putnam's "Books and their Makers during the Middle
Ages."

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